Buffs and nerfs

Warcraft is not a static game. The rules change every few weeks/months. Some classes get stronger, some change, some get weaker. Recently Retribution Paladins got the nerf a bit. Before 3.2 a Retri opening would consist of Crusader Strike (lot of damage) Judgement (lot of damage) Divine Storm (lot of damage) - in PvP this meant that Paladins of this persuasion would literally blow people before they got a chance to do anything. Especially because all of those abilities are interspersed with auto-attack that also procced Seal damage.

It's changed now so that the Seal of choice needs a bit of time to get going and deliver a lot of damage. Crusader Strike now has a lower cooldown and also does less damage. In short the potential for huge bursts has been reduced, but overall the damage is still reasonable.
No matter what the changes are invariably people seem to dislike changes, or at least big changes like this. If something gets changed from 5% to 10% you don't hear anyone, but small tweaks like that are rare. Blizzard like big changes and a lot of them. So do I.

Lots of small changes that would slowly make everything creep towards something resembling balance is just not what Blizzard are after. They want you to have to deal with changing circumstances. Balance is not a realistic goal when some people wear cloth and others wear plate. Big kick-ass two-handers vs. wands.

I think almost every class has had one of those patches where people were declaring that Blizzard 'hated their class' and they were going to quit. Strangely Warcraft is still going strong and I can't think of any class at the moment that is really useless, unless played badly.

I've found that buffs and nerfs come in cycles, sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down. Blizzard seems to make decisions that make you grab your hair and want to pull it out in big clumps. I think their decisions are almost purposely made that way - again, they want you to deal with changes. The system must be unbalanced so new changes can be made.

Welcome to Raiding 101 [III]

MOAR BUFFS
Buffs, in WoW you are able to get a few buffs by yourself, even without being in a raid. Being an alchemist or a cook helps a lot, but there is always something called the Auction house. There are 5 kinds of buffs you can use, let me explain them briefly.

Food buffs
These buffs benefit one or two things your character needs. For example, “Great Feast” will boost your stamina, attack power and healing power. There are tons of different food buffs, One gives your crit, the other one gives you more haste or expertise. (if you lack the expertise or the hit cap, you can use a food buff to temporarily increase it.) The best part of food buffs is that they stack with everything else.

Battle Elixirs
Since there are two types of elixirs you have to be careful not to buy two of the same kind. Back in vanilla WoW you were able to use as much elixirs as possible, but thank god they changed that back in TBC. You can only use two, but two different ones.

Guardian Elixirs
Pretty much the same elixirs as the battle ones, only increasing other stats. These elixirs can also temporarily increase your power, like 3minute armor buffs.

Flasks
The most expensive of all buffs, usually because of all the mats that are needed to create one, but they benefit starts greatly It’s a shame you cant use Elixirs and a flask at the same time, but it also cuts the costs of raiding. J Flasks for example give you 120more attack or healing power for 2whole hours. And if you die, the buff will remain, instead of vanishing just like the Elixirs and food buffs do.

Scrolls
Yes, they do work. Although not all scrolls are as useful as you, for example the intellect scrolls are only useful when there isn’t a mage present. But armor or agi scrolls might be very handy when you want to increase you dps.