FIrst official 3.1 preview

[Kevin]

People are already screaming about Ret Damage being out of control even with the Bubble nerf. Case in point, I had a Ret Pally jump my Hunter in Wintergrasp. With full health, I was killed by said Pally 2 seconds after the HoJ stun dropped and I couldn't do a damn thing to the Paladin cause he was Bubbled at the time and there's no way for a Hunter to remove it (and he was Bubbled when he did the initial HoJ). When you can do almost 19k damage in 8 seconds when you're damage is cut in half and the target has 40% DR, there's something pretty wrong.

You realize that 19K damage in 8s is only 2375 DPS. OK so that would be 4750 without the half damage penalty. Your 40% mit means just about nothing because most of that damage you took wasn't physical anyway. Judgement is holy, hammer of wrath is holy (and I'm sure you took one), seal of command damage is holy and in PvP I'm pretty sure the pally was using command and for you to take that much damage it had to proc, crusader strike is holy damage. So you mitigated 40% of the 2 or 3 physical swings that hit you. 5K DPS sustained for 5-10 seconds is not out of the reach of other classes either. Of course I wonder if he really was bubbled when he hammered you. Was it his bubble or was it the sacred shield effect that looks somewhat similar and in the heat of PvP can be mistaken. It doesn't make a lot of sense to bubble that early, bubbling near the end of the duration sure, but that would mean the DPS needed was even lower if even 2 sec of that time was not divine shield but sacred shield (the reactive healing spell).

Now I'm not saying it isn't a problem. The real problem with paladins in PvP has always been the bubble the stun has been an issue from time to time, but it's only a problem if they have enough burst damage. They now have enough burst damage if spec'd for it so that is a problem as well. If you can do 2-3K DPS (which many classes can) and you can stun someone for 6s then you can safely do 12,000 to 15,000 damage. Rogues have had issues like this as well, though it generally took a bit more skill to keep the opponent locked down while you killed them while helpless.

That is the frustrating thing in PvP regardless of how it happens. If any class can kill you or nearly kill you while you have no control of your toon it sucks. Fear nerfs happened because skilled warlocks could kill people in PvP while that person was completely helpless due to the fear and the DoTs ate them. As mentioned stuns got diminishing returns because rogues could do way to much to a helpless opponent. Hunter burst was nerfed because the essential one shooting of many toons, mostly to do with aimed shot + multi and mostly in the pre-TBC days. Mages had things taken away because of crazy burst combos as well. Other examples can be cited. So yeah I don't disagree with you. It's the most unfun part of PvP. Dying without a chance to do anything. Healers are really feeling it right now as well, the unfun part.

I don't think the issue is really burst damage. I think the issue is burst damage + control for rets right now. And while that pally that killed you was in a lot of trouble if anyone else with any skill attacked him (since he had no bubble, no stun, no real control options, though depending on lay on hands state he still might have had escape options) that still doesn't make it a satisfying experience. It's also hard to tell if that pally had any skill or just got lucky and that sucks too. Losing to a high skilled player who doesn't let you do much to them doesn't bother me too much.

Part of why I didn't mind TBC druids that much, they frustrated me, but it did require some skill to do what was needed to survive forever, there were plenty of resto druids that were only so-so that my hunter was able to dispatch. Not as fast as some other healers that I killed with him, but if the druid didn't have skill I could kill them.

Anyway just some ramblings on it. The bubble is still a problem and I could still live with it being removed and replaced with some other escape mechanism that wasn't quite as foolproof. I have used it a few times in PvE to save my butt, and wouldn't want any option, but not something so powerful.