Val'anyr, the gavel of Ancient Kings

PsyBomb · 05/04/09, 3:40 PM

Quote by Bornakk

We have received many questions about how the proc works on Val’anyr, the Hammer of the Ancient Kings. While we originally intended for this effect to be a mystery, we realize that guilds now know what the tooltip on the proc says without necessarily knowing the details on how it works. This leads to situations where a healer may not know if assembling the hammer is worth it for them (hint: it is), and perhaps even worse, a misinformed leader may not think you deserve the hammer (hint: you do).

Players also wonder if the proc makes the item deserving of its legendary status given that the stat allocation is normal for items of its item level (Hint: it does).

The effect reads “Your healing spells have a chance to cause Blessing of Ancient Kings for 15 seconds allowing your heals to shield the target absorbing damage equal to 15% of the amount healed.”

The way this works is that when the proc happens (which is a 10% chance whenever a hot or direct spell heals, with a 45 sec internal cooldown) you gain a buff (the Blessing) on yourself. Now all of your heals for the next 15 sec cause an 8 sec damage shield. The shield stacks with itself. It includes healing done by subsequent ticks of existing hots on the target. Note that the spell has to actually heal, so hots ticking on a fully-healed target cannot cause the proc. However the shield is based on the size of the heal itself, not the amount healed – i.e. 100% overhealing will not proc the Blessing on the healer, but the shield itself includes overhealing once the Blessing is active. The shield can grow to a maximum size of 20,000 damage absorbed.

Example 1: A paladin casts Holy Light for 10K on the tank, which partially heals her. The Blessing procs, so the paladin’s Holy Light immediately causes a shield on the tank which will now absorb 1500 damage. The tank dodges the next two hits, so no damage is absorbed. The paladin then casts another heal for 8K, but only heals the tank for 600 before she is at full health. The shield is now at 2700 damage absorbed (1500 + 1200) for 8 sec.

Example 2: A druid casts Rejuv on the tank, healing her. The Blessing procs on the druid on the second tick. A shield is applied to the tank which absorbs 15% of the amount healed by that tick and each remaining tick of the Rejuv. If the druid also gets Lifebloom and Regrowth on the tank while the Blessing is up, then those ticks also contribute to the shield. If the shield goes down because the 8 sec duration expires or it absorbs that much damage, it can go up again as long as the Blessing lasts, which is 15 sec.

Update by Ghostcrawler

To answer some questions:

1) If you are lucky enough to have two hammers in your group, then they will both contribute to the same bubble.

2) It should work as you would expect with PW:Shield and similar effects. Specifically, the damage should work through one shield and then the other. I don't know off the top of my head which one is used first. Sometimes we have edge cases with multiple absorbs like this that we will need to solve as they arise. (To be clear, PW:Shield will not proc the blessing or the bubble though, because it does not heal.)

3) If you have the blessing (i.e. you caused healing and the proc occured) then overhealing will count towards the bubble. Hots that tick on a target will still contribute to the bubble. You can also choose to switch to a direct heal if you don't have enough GCDs available to get all of your hots up before the blessing fades. The confusing part here is that hots that don't heal won't cause the blessing (we didn't want you fishing for the bubble before a pull by constantly healing the tank, though I suppose you could if your tank was injured). But once the blessing is active, then all of your healing spells will contribute to the bubble even if they do no actual healing.

We'll leave it to you guys to theorycraft out if you think the hammer is marginally better for one class than another. Some players were speculating before this announcement that the bubble only applied to one spell, which would definitely favor Holy Light. We implemented it the way we did to make sure the other healing classes could still get juicy bubbles while the blessing was active (which is 15 sec).

Ok, so now we know how the legendary officially works. Well, mostly, anyway. There are a couple of things I would like to find out eventually (notably, do hots that tick after the Blessing fades still provide a shield). From the initial look, it seems that they have done a pretty good job of making it fair for 4 of the 5 healing specs. Disc priests get the short end of the stick here, but even then not by all that much.

The proc itself is monstrously powerful, since the master effect is on the caster, and not the target. This translates to 15 seconds of shields spinning around anywhere the caster's heals go. Though they don't last long, it is still a major bonus to anyone who would be taking damage in that time. Off the top of my head it will be particularly valuable on Sarth (dark realm and random damage), Malygos (Vortex), and during nearly every fight in Ulduar (Timpanic Tantrum being the biggest example here). It makes the user more of what they already are; Paladins become much more effective tank healers while Shaman AoE healing gets a big bonus.

This is all just rambling for me, I haven't read any threads on other sites about this and didn't find one here in any of the class-neutral areas (which is why i started it). It's all just to get the discussion going.

Handyhoof · 05/04/09, 4:41 PM

It looks like this will truly benefit HoTs. Each tick of a HoT has the same chance to proc as a casting of a direct heal. A series of rolling HoTs (on multiple people) will probably provide the best uptime on the buff/shields.

In so far as HoTs while the buff is up, it sounds like they take the total healing and apply it all at once. Bornakk references getting all your HoTs up to pad the shield, and says "A shield is applied to the tank which absorbs 15% of the amount healed by that tick and each remaining tick of the Rejuv." If this is the case: I'd see it working like:

Hot ticks, shield goes up as Bornakk says. Each HoT that is cast while the buff is up applies a shield once per cast, not per tick, and this occurs at the full total of the HoT. For a reactive heal (Earth Shield), I'd expect it to proc per tick, since each is given a chance to crit individually, in essence acting like separate heals.

Isin · 05/04/09, 5:34 PM

I haven't seen any place where this discussion has not degenerated into a class war, but it really seems like it is not so much a class that specifically benefits, but a role. Due to the nature of the shield proc, this is not going to be best utilized by a raid healer (who deals with splash damage), but rather a tank healer, who is healing a target (or targets) that is/are taking constant, consistent damage.

It's obviously amazing for any healer really, but I think a tank healer is going to be the one using it the longest.

ttyl · 05/04/09, 5:43 PM

Originally Posted by Isin

I haven't seen any place where this discussion has not degenerated into a class war, but it really seems like it is not so much a class that specifically benefits, but a role. Due to the nature of the shield proc, this is not going to be best utilized by a raid healer (who deals with splash damage), but rather a tank healer, who is healing a target (or targets) that is/are taking constant, consistent damage.

Exactly. Especially with the ICD (and the shields only lasting 8 seconds...), the chance that raid healing benefits from the Blessing proc is much lower, on average, than the chance that tank heaing benefits.

Cheesse · 05/04/09, 10:03 PM

A Resto druid would have a hay day with this seeing the proc on the HoTs. I am glad all other healing classes get as equal treatment as possible. Hopefully I can get this mace one day I would love to give it a spin.

Singe_Feathermoon · 05/04/09, 10:27 PM

It seems that Val'Anyr should be most useful when shielding the MT.. for approximately 1500 per pally heal which will promptly be consumed on the next incoming blow. It's supposed to be exciting that it stacks to 20,000, but think about that for a sec. The only time it can conceivably stack that big is if your tank dodges/parries back-to-back-to-back blows.

Which, theoretically, is the time your tank needs a nice fat shield the least.

Juice · 05/05/09, 4:40 PM

The shield's maximum capacity is high so you can just crank up the healing when the buff procs, without really worrying that you'll cap out the shield's capacity. A 20,000 maximum point shield means you have to heal for 133,333 points over 15 seconds (8888 hps) without the tank getting hit. Then the buff drops off the healer and the shield will fade 8 seconds later.

vanadium322 · 05/06/09, 12:52 AM

There are actually quite a number of places in Ulduar where an 8s shield could be extremely effective in a raid healing capacity; Timpanic Tantrum, Frozen Blows, Heat Wave, etc, which makes this seem really awesome for say a Holy Priest. The problem there is the internal cooldown; it would need to proc the buff on the healer at the right time for it to have a significant effect, and could easily be wasted by proccing early or late... This is a case where it'd be really nice to see that ability as a "Use:" with a small cooldown rather than a proc.

Charnas · 05/06/09, 9:32 AM

My thoughts are that this would benefit raid healing more than tank healing. Tanks tend to get more focused healing in our raids, with specific healers assigned to each tank, which tends to keep them in stable territory. For the most part this only breaks down when something happens to one of those assigned healers who is usually being covered by a raid healer. On heavy aoe fights, each point of health that the raid doesn't lose is a point of health that doesn't need to be healed. Now this really is more of a fight by fight thing. Fights with a lot of aoe damage, this will shine on a raid healer, fights with little to no aoe damage you're better off with it on the tank healer for obvious reasons.

• frmorrison · 05/06/09, 5:13 PM

Originally Posted by Charnas

Fights with a lot of aoe damage, this will shine on a raid healer, fights with little to no aoe damage you're better off with it on the tank healer for obvious reasons.

Other than Tantrum, Frozen Blows, and Heat Wave, I don't see continuous raid damage, i.e. damage that happens, and then a few seconds later happens again. However, it is still a great item for a raid healer when those situations occur, and a raid healer can still HoT or instant heal the tank when the buff is up for an extra shield on the MT.

Shha · 05/06/09, 7:49 PM

The shield's maximum capacity is high so you can just crank up the healing when the buff procs, without really worrying that you'll cap out the shield's capacity. A 20,000 maximum point shield means you have to heal for 133,333 points over 15 seconds (8888 hps) without the tank getting hit. Then the buff drops off the healer and the shield will fade 8 seconds later.

I dont think that was even the reason to put it that high - they simply thought a bit ahead and realized that there will be guilds with many valanyrs (be it normal gathering or transfers). They ensured the shield essentially "stacks".

rightclick · 05/07/09, 8:47 AM

I see it as a good raid healer item aswell.

Someone mentioned a 1.5k bubble on a pally heal proc. 1.5k on a 45k HP tank is not bad, but on a 20k clothie is actually nice.

• Chicken · 05/12/09, 6:07 AM

We already have a thread about this legendary weapon over in the general discussion forum, and one thread really is quite enough. So locking this one.