Exorcism can no longer be used on players
by Eliah Hecht 
Apr 21st 2009 at 6:30PM
As an unannounced change in this morning's patch 3.1.1, Exorcism can no longer be used against players. The stated rationale for this change not being announced ahead of time was that they were "trying to get the tooltip changed at the same time to reduce confusion," which doesn't quite seem to hold water for me - wouldn't it be less confusing to tell the players, and not leave them to find out for themselves the next time they tried to PvP? Anyway, that's a relatively minor issue.
Recall that in patch 3.1, Exorcism was changed to be usable on all targets, and to automatically crit against demons and undead (before, it could only be used against demons and undead). Evidently Blizzard feels that it's just too much burst damage for Ret pallies in PvP, especially given that it means they can start up their combos from range. Edit: Just to clarify, the functionality of Exorcism in PvE is unchanged.
Ghostcrawler also promises that they're working on making Pally DPS "more interesting and also less bursty" instead of just using all your skills on cooldown, and that once they figure out how to do that, you'll be able to Exorcise other players again. He gives Conflagrate, Brain Freeze, Rip, Overpower, and Arcane Blast as examples of the kind of more interesting mechanics they might be going for. He invites feedback on ways to make Pally DPS more reactive, so go make your thoughts known in the thread if you have any ideas.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
fauxgt4 Apr 21st 2009 7:29PM
A few helpful comments:
1) If a mage is using Pom (arcane, 21 point) pyro (11 points fire) icelance (used only really by frost) they shouldn't be beating you, cause they have the most borked up spec ever.
2) I have no idea what a stunk lock is.
3) Every single DPS class wishes their burst dps was higher. Other than locks (possibly ele shammies?) every single DPS spec is a "burst DPS spec"
Check some arena rankings at sk-gaming. In 2v2 last season, 40 of the top 50 teams had a pally (more than had DK's believe it or not). I don't think you guys have too much a problem in pvp without exo.
Vekz Apr 21st 2009 6:35PM
As long as I can still use it when I raid, that's fine by me!
Meh @ PvP
Jeff Apr 21st 2009 6:38PM
This is true. I'd rather them remove it entirely from pvp than nerf it but leave it and screw us over from PVE.
Alphasim Apr 21st 2009 6:39PM
I only do Wintergrasp for PvP, and this sucks, especially not telling us ahead of time. I use the spell in WG all the time. It's great for opening a battle or hitting someone who's otherwise engaged. I also slip it in my rotation on a regular basis. I don't get it. Does Blizz hate Pallys? Why give us a toy and then take it away? It's like retadins' brief moment in the sun when Wrath launched. Ever since, it seems like Blizz has had it in for us. "To the ground," indeed. I've since switched to prot for my PvP kicks, despite my love for ret. Blizz needs to find another class to torment for a while. They can get back to us some other time.
Alphasim Apr 21st 2009 6:43PM
Ok, my reply was meant as a general reply, not a critique to the above comment. I don't argue with your point, I just wanted to toss in my two cents. Sorry!
Eneru Apr 21st 2009 6:34PM
Awwwwww... : (
Tom Apr 21st 2009 7:03PM
I'd only just started to enjoy pvp again thanks to exo.
Boo, Blizzard, Boo.
Dan Apr 21st 2009 7:38PM
Come on now, it wouldn't be a patch without a paladin nerf. Blizzard has it's traditions you know.
Kanuris Apr 21st 2009 9:21PM
Main burst damage nerfed to hell. Exorcism thought to be the extra attack to balance the burst nerf.
Exorcism now gone.
It's back to lolret in PvP.
Ferarro Apr 22nd 2009 10:59AM
The good news is, this will finally tone down all the high representation Ret Paladins have in Area right now...
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..
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Jeff Apr 21st 2009 6:34PM
Having a ranged attack made pvp a lot more fun... one thing to use on CD when trapped/slowed or something. I'd like for them to balance exo and reinclude it as part of our arsenal.
kyle Apr 22nd 2009 8:38AM
I think a really cool use for it would be to make it decay a targets armor by X amount over 15-18 seconds . Basically a DOT version of sunder that would slowly ramp up the amount of armor reduced so its more potent at the end of the DOT.
This would make it so that you would benifit from timing some of your attacks later in the rotation (in order to address just blowing all your CD's everytime theyre up)
Add a small damage component to it (for the PVE guys / not much as you already have the debuff) but the damage part of the DOT would autocrit on Undead/Demon.
Or instead of the damage element possibly a 5-10% slow (needs to stay lower percentage to keep ret players talented into the +8/16 percent movement talent)
There are alot of cool things they could do with it that would make it a more unique pally spell. Just my 2c.
Urthona Apr 21st 2009 6:38PM
OK
How about Death Grip not usable on players?
Alphasim Apr 21st 2009 6:41PM
Agreed. Death Grip is more unbalanced then exorcism.
muffin_of_chaos Apr 21st 2009 8:31PM
Then it's agreed. In PvP, Death Knights lose Death Grip, Paladins gain back Exorcism and lose Divine Shield.
Awesome-freaking-sauce!
Hey, while we're at it...Rogues can't use Preparation, and Shaman spells lose half of their spellpower coefficient, and Priests can't use Mana Burn outside of Shadowform, and the Druid Restoration and Feral trees disappear, and Warlocks will have the Affliction tree and Conflagrate nerfed, and Mages will have a 10% chance for their spells to backfire, and Hunters will......die?...
Warriors are fine of course.
Yay, good thing there won't be any more QQ ever.
Lemons Apr 21st 2009 10:56PM
It's a cool ability that should be usable on players, it's just the range on it that I have an issue with.
it's got an effin 30 yard range...meaning it's longer than a warrior's charge or a rogue's shadowstep. That means if a DK death grips you off his healer and then healer is already running in the opposite direction, you have no chance of getting back on that healer.
It should be 20 yards...25 yards at the most. If that's a nerf to PvE then I don't even care, they can just give DKs a different taunt and stop using 1 ability to do 23 different things.
Kanuris Apr 22nd 2009 12:32AM
@muffin_of_chaos
Death Grip Cooldown: 35 second cooldown. Talentable to 30/25 seconds with just 6/7 points in the Unholy Tree.
Divine Shield: 5 minute cooldown. Talentable to 4:30/4:00 minute with 26/27 points in the Protection Tree.
Preparation: 10 minute cooldown. Talentable to 7:30/5:00 minute with 41/42 points in the Subtlety Tree.
I could go on. The flaw in your arguement is that these abilities have huge cooldowns in comparison to Death Grip.
muffin_of_chaos Apr 22nd 2009 2:35AM
@Kanuris
And the flaw in your argument is that I'm comparing apples to oranges, and you're accepting it, despite the fact that my whole point is to make fun of people who accept that an apple is an orange.
Death Grip is a trademark ability of Death Knights, and it is broken. Divine Shield is a trademark ability of Paladins, and it is broken. The cooldown doesn't matter. As with Preparation, if Divine Shield had a 25 second cooldown, people would go batshit insane. The thing can literally turn you from being fully dotted up and controlled in any number of ways and almost dead into an invincible self-healing machine, unless you're fighting a Priest or Warrior.
Exorcism being usable on players is not in any way a trademark ability of Paladins, especially since it has been usable in such a way for a week. Maybe it would be important to preserve if Paladins didn't have Judgments. Luckily, they do, though I'm sure some Holy Pally gladiators don't in fact know this.
See, 'cuz it was stupidly easy to be a Holy Pally gladiator. That's the joke.
They were trying to nerf Ret Pally spike damage and Holy Pally overall dominance, and they're on track.
So, as I meant to imply, QQ MOAR PLZ.
Fatbeard Apr 21st 2009 6:40PM
More like "trying to ninja this in so the Paladin forums don't go full core breach"
Fix the tooltip my butt.
kcy29581 Apr 21st 2009 6:42PM
Looking at all those examples, looks like Ghostcrawler wants Paladins do have DoTs and consumed-based attacks.
Well, RetLocks may be on the way as a new world order in WoW, if this is balancing!
Oh, but I understand why they are cautious with Exorcism. But am I right in saying that this is the first ability that now is different in PvE and PvP?
If so, this may be what they are looking at in the future, unless they really will re-enable Exorcism in PvP once they figure out how "Paladins should work"!