Well from my understanding, DS/taunting wouldn't be a problem if you're far ahead other people on threat, like any tank should be really. If for some reason you think you're gonna die, it's a good Oh Shit combo, much better last stand. Combined with the Ardent Defender talent, you have good chances to survive everything that would otherwise kill a non prot warrior, and you might even survive stuff a prot warrior would die to due to 30mins shield wall cooldown. I'm wondering if you really can't gain threat while shielded tho, but anyway, chances are, you can DS, cancel it, and avenger's shield the mob back to you, without having to rely on taunt. It would just serve as a buffer for healers, since the mob would have to run to next person on threat list, who is "usually" standing 35-40yards away. Well timed it would work perfectly, and you can use the taunt only if you need it on that person.
As for offtanking and keepin the mob on you while shielded, I see some uses for that to save your MT in case something goes wrong. Remember you can taunt and can DS even when DPSing or healing. That's probably better than any instant heal besides LoH, say you're at max healing range on the warrior, he gets owned, use the taunt on him, bosses turns to you, start running away then DS once the tank is healed back, mob automatically goes back to warrior. Sounds a bit risky but probably doable. You probably don't even need DS for this one, if the taunt works like warriors one, if you do nothing after you taunt the mob will go back to his old target once it wears off.
I'd like to see the exact mechanics on the paladin's taunt tho, it seems a bit weird, the description doesn't say how long the taunt effect lasts, is it a 100% taunt or a 110% taunt, is it on global cooldown(I have a 24paladin myself but haven't grouped once to test it)
I find the whole taunting/DS thing to be pretty useful in a number of situations.
I'm wondering if you really can't gain threat while shielded tho, but anyway, chances are, you can DS, cancel it, and avenger's shield the mob back to you, without having to rely on taunt. It would just serve as a buffer for healers, since the mob would have to run to next person on threat list, who is "usually" standing 35-40yards away. Well timed it would work perfectly,
Hrm, would it though?
You're tanking, you DS - mob runs off to the healer camp. You cancel your DS - are you *sure* you'll have enough threat to get the mob back on you? Remember you'll need to have 130% as much as the next target on the list if the mob has run out of melee range. Do you have the ranged spike damage to pull that off? Looks to me as though it'll be like an MT trying to use his gun to pull back aggro on something that's headed off to the healer camp.
Now, what you *can* do if you're careful is ping-pong the mob by DSing and then taunting it back. Depending on the cooldowns, that may or may not come in handy.
So, let's examine what happens when you do them in order.
1) Taunt, then immediately hit DS.
- you get put at the top of the threat list, mob gets the taunt debuff
- DS takes effect, you are removed from the threat list but still have 100% threat.
- Mob continues attacking until the taunt debuff wears off.
- Taunt wears off - mob moves on to someone else
- DS wears off, you get your threat back, which may or may not be sufficient to get aggro back onto you.
2) DS, then taunt.
- DS takes effect, you are removed from the threat list.
- Taunt takes effect, mob is forced to attack you, but you do not gain any threat.
- Mob continues attacking until the taunt debuff wears off.
- Taunt wears off - mob moves on to someone else
- DS wears off, you get set to however much threat you had at the start, and have not gained *any* threat from the taunt.
This is silly. Why would you assume that the Paladin doesn't have aggro on the mob to begin with? In the context of discussion about the potential of the class as tanks, isn't it far more likely that they actually have the mob tanked? Really, the far more likely situation is:
3) DS, then taunt (the mob was already on you before DS).
- DS takes effect; mob starts to ignore you.
- Taunt takes effect; mob is on you again; no threat gain under DS.
- Taunt wears off; mob moves on to someone else.
- DS wears off; either mob comes back to you (if your threat level was high enough before DS) or not.
Or:
4) DS, then taunt (the mob was already on you before DS).
- DS takes effect; mob starts to ignore you.
- Taunt takes effect; mob is on you again; no threat gain under DS.
- You manually click off DS just before taunt wears off.
- Taunt wears off; mob stays on you.
If you can make sure you take off DS manually in time, it's a 3 second invulnerability (duration on Righteous Defense as far as I can tell). That's not so daft.
Well, that is assuming that you are indeed removed from the threat list for the duration. It could very well be the case that the AI is set to ignore targets which they can't attack normally, while no change is made to the threat. The aggro will switch to the next valid target on the list, but the positions relative to one another threatwise remains unchanged.
Um, these two sentences mean the same thing. You are removed from the threat list - i.e. you are ignored by the mob. When DS wears off, you are replaced on the threat list - i.e. the mob is allowed to attack you again. You do not gain or lose any monster hate during the process.
When they take effect, you are removed from the threat list, i.e. the mob moves on to the next valid target. While they are in effect, you do not gain any threat. When they wear off, you are replaced in the threat list at the same place you had before - by which time you will have been overtaken.
Except that's not how it works. When you use DS solo, mobs will continue to attack and chase. If you were removed from the threat list, they'd reset, like they do for Feign Death and Vanish.
I suspect that invulnerability effects work more like Fade, where your threat is temporarily replaced with a lower value (probably zero) and restored (or replaced with the maximum of the two, if you can gain threat) when the effect wears off.
Except that's not how it works. When you use DS solo, mobs will continue to attack and chase. If you were removed from the threat list, they'd reset, like they do for Feign Death and Vanish.
I suspect that invulnerability effects work more like Fade, where your threat is temporarily replaced with a lower value (probably zero) and restored (or replaced with the maximum of the two, if you can gain threat) when the effect wears off.
Is it necessarily threat-based, or could it be the mob-side equivalent of an "invalid target" error?
There ought to be a way, perhaps with 2 paladins and a third party member, so see if DS has a threat modification component to it, or if the mob simply goes for the next person on the threat list while it can't attack the paladin.
I suspect that invulnerability effects work more like Fade, where your threat is temporarily replaced with a lower value (probably zero) and restored (or replaced with the maximum of the two, if you can gain threat) when the effect wears off.
Is it necessarily threat-based, or could it be the mob-side equivalent of an "invalid target" error?
It could be, sure. Implementing it as part of the mob AI would also have the advantage that the developers wouldn't have to remember to add a threat-adjusting mod to every invulnerability effect. On the other hand, we know the game already has a temporary threat adjustment mechanism that's used for Fade. How they did it for DS and the like is just about as likely to depend on who coded what as it is on what actually makes the most sense.
I'm not sure it's possible to distinguish the cases of "AI skips over invulnerable targets" and "threat is reduced to 0 while invulnerable", unless it can be determined that invulnerables gain threat normally. Presumably, the way you'd test that would be to have someone else pull with minimal aggro, shield and outaggro him, and see if the mob switches targets during invulnerability, after it wears off, or never. If it switches during invulnerability, we know we're in the "dropped to zero" case; if it switches after, we're in the "ignore" case; and if it never switches, we're in the "doesn't gain aggro while invulnerable" case, but don't know whether the invulnerability is a threat reduction or an ignore flag. Assuming, of course, there aren't other possibilities we're overlooking.
It also might be interesting to find out who gets aggro after a shield wears off if the paladin has aggro initially and a partymember does enough damage during the shield to put him between 100% and 110% of the paladin's threat level. If the paladin gets aggro back, that looks like some evidence in favor of an AI check rather than a threat adjustment, since it means the paladin never really lost threat supremacy.
If invulnerability is a threat adjuster, it raises the question of whether the threat adjustment is a separate buff from the invulnerability and, if so, whether it can be bumped off the buff list with enough temporary buffs, leaving you an invulnerable tank with full threat. Good luck testing that one.
A few possible interesting test scenarios I can think of:
A) Have a Paladin body pull a mob and do nothing. Have a second Paladin use Divine Shield, and attack, than make the first Paladin use Divine Protection while the second Paladins Divine Shield is active. Does aggro switch to the second Paladin, or does it remain on the first Paladin? (Results will show whether some kind of threat is still active when Divine Shield is up)
B) Have someone body pull a mob, than have a Paladin (Who shouldn't be body pulling), use Divine Shield followed by Righteous Defense and hitting the mob. Does the mob move back to the body puller after Righteous Defense fades, does it move back when Divine Shield fades, or does it first move back when Righteous Defense fades, to return to the Paladin when Divine Shield fades?
C) See B, except use Righteous Defense first and Divine Shield after.
Came accross this quote elsewhere, and was curious as to how accurate it is:
"The way they are taking the class is not really a tank. It is more of an AoE, multi-target aggro puller. Sort of like a Hunter's Misdirection, it is meant to bring some control to large groups of mobs or mobs with very chaotic aggro mechanics. So you will see it being more of a "oh shit this guy has aggro I need to take it off him." The design and itemization doesn't lean toward a paladin actually tanking for extended period of times, but more like ping ponging mobs. Maybe they have some special cases in mind, but I think that will the general idea." - Delemos, DnT
Does this mesh well with what other people in the Beta are seeing? Prot Paladins can tank 5 and 10 mans, but don't expect to see them main tanking raid bosses. Is this what we should be content with? Or should we push to see main tanking potential? I know Blizzard has said they want Paladins to be competitive tanks with warriors, but it seems so far that it might not be there just yet.
I know I'd like to be competitive with Warriors, enough that if we didn't have a Prot tank one night, a Prot Paladin could do it just about as well.
Bah. Wish they would hurry up and up the level cap to 70 and open some raid instances.
Somewhat. We're definitely good at saving people now (taunt then heal-tank) and controlling groups of mobs (Consecrate ticks for 100+ easily), but I don't think the design really excludes us from tanking a single, hard-hitting mob for an extended period of time. To be honest, I feel more capable on my Paladin compared my alt Warrior who I've used to tank ZG, AQ20, and MC in terms of threat generation, even when my Paladin isn't full Protection (but maybe that's just my familiarity with the class).
Mitigation, on the other hand, feels a bit lacking. I know large part of that is gear, and mine in Beta isn't optimal, but the fact that we can't really react to a large burst (no Shield Block to push crushing off the table) could be a liability in raids.
"The way they are taking the class is not really a tank. It is more of an AoE, multi-target aggro puller...." - Delemos, DnT
Does this mesh well with what other people in the Beta are seeing? Prot Paladins can tank 5 and 10 mans, but don't expect to see them main tanking raid bosses. Is this what we should be content with? Or should we push to see main tanking potential? I know Blizzard has said they want Paladins to be competitive tanks with warriors, but it seems so far that it might not be there just yet.
Well, I'm not in the beta, but I have done some searches of beta drops on Thott, and I've seen exactly zero paladin-oriented tanking pieces (which I define as def + spell damage, and maybe int). I'm not sure if that's a bad sign or another symptom of Blizzard's "leveling gear is different than endgame gear" idea like the lack of spirit gear for priests. There's also a total lack of hybrid dps jewelry (str + spell damage), which works against all three melee + healing classes.
From a theoretical point of view, I can only see one case where a paladin might be preferable to a warrior as a tank on a single mob, and that's when the raid does not require maximum mitigation but does require maximum dps. A non-warrior tank will allow the usual warrior tank to switch to dps gear and will allow a rogue to use improved expose armor. I also suspect, though I haven't attempted to run the numbers, that a protection paladin tank will significantly outdamage a protection warrior tank, even though the warrior should outdamage the paladin in a non-tanking role (the latest version of Reckoning looks pretty impressive for tanking, especially if it procs seals, since it's now chance on being hit rather than guarantee on being crit).
Well, I'm not in the beta, but I have done some searches of beta drops on Thott, and I've seen exactly zero paladin-oriented tanking pieces (which I define as def + spell damage, and maybe int). I'm not sure if that's a bad sign or another symptom of Blizzard's "leveling gear is different than endgame gear" idea like the lack of spirit gear for priests. There's also a total lack of hybrid dps jewelry (str + spell damage), which works against all three melee + healing classes.
Even if they do a poor job with "paladin tanking plate", Spiritual Attunement and socketing can probably make up for most itemization shortfalls. Worst case, I think you could get some standard nonset tanking plate, maybe add a few spelldamage gems, and be in reasonably good shape.
From a theoretical point of view, I can only see one case where a paladin might be preferable to a warrior as a tank on a single mob, and that's when the raid does not require maximum mitigation but does require maximum dps. A non-warrior tank will allow the usual warrior tank to switch to dps gear and will allow a rogue to use improved expose armor. I also suspect, though I haven't attempted to run the numbers, that a protection paladin tank will significantly outdamage a protection warrior tank, even though the warrior should outdamage the paladin in a non-tanking role (the latest version of Reckoning looks pretty impressive for tanking, especially if it procs seals, since it's now chance on being hit rather than guarantee on being crit).
I'm not sure about that last part; Devastate looks like a pretty nice rage->damage dump and it's completely spammable. I'd think that would be at least in the ballpark of a Prot paladin spamming HS/Consecreate/JoR, if not higher.
What I would hope for is that a Prot paladin would be preferable to an Arms/Fury warrior for tanking.
My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
I also suspect, though I haven't attempted to run the numbers, that a protection paladin tank will significantly outdamage a protection warrior tank, even though the warrior should outdamage the paladin in a non-tanking role
I'm not sure about that last part; Devastate looks like a pretty nice rage->damage dump and it's completely spammable. I'd think that would be at least in the ballpark of a Prot paladin spamming HS/Consecreate/JoR, if not higher.
This sounds like a call to run the numbers. Here's my initial attempt, using level 70 skills and the paladin spell coefficients given on the beta paladin forum. Someone please check my math :-)
Setup
Assume both the paladin and the warrior have +140 defense, 20% parry, 20% block, 20% dodge, 10% crit, and 6% hit (3% of the paladin's from talents).
The paladin has 1400 ap, 260 spell damage, 5% spell crit, and is using a 1.6 speed 75 dps weapon. The warrior has 1820 ap (including the boost from Vitality) and is using a 2.0 speed 75 dps weapon (better for Devastate, worse for HS). Assume 14 ap still equals 1 dps at level 70, or scale ap accordingly.
Sample mob swings once every 2 seconds and has 5% dodge, block, and parry, and armor reduction after debuffs of 20%. Hits hard enough to provide effectively infinite rage and mana. With the given defense, parry, and dodge values, the mob will hit the PC on average only 50% of the time.
Paladin
Avenging Wrath is a 30% damage boost for 20/180 seconds, so model as a 3.34% overall damage boost, rounding up slightly to compensate for underestimating effective timing.
Reckoning is active on any given swing 10% of the time if any of the mob's last 3 swings did damage, which is an overall chance of being up of about 14.3%, so model as a 14.3% boost to auto-attack and SoR damage.
With Crusader judged, the paladin has an effective 450 spell damage.
Seal of Righteousness: (36.5 + 0.092 * 1.6 * 450) * 1.034 * 1.143 = 121.4 per swing
121.4 * (.95 ^ 3) / 1.6 = 65.1 dps
Each Holy Shield block will do (155 + .05 * 450) * 1.034 = 183.5 damage.
Redoubt will be up 10% of the time if any of the mob's last 4 attacks did damage, which is an overall chance of being up of about 18.5%. With the +30% block from HS and the 20% from gear, that's an average block chance of 68.5%, so for simplicity, assume about 68.5% of Holy Shield charges will be used, giving HS a dps of 183.5 * 4 * .685 / 10 = 50.3.
Assume the paladin is specced for AoE tanking and has Improved Retribution Aura rather than something more useful to this example. That gives dps from Retribution Aura as: 26 * 1.5 / 4 = 9.75.
Total is: 110.4 + 72.4 + 65.1 + 183.5 + 50.3 + 9.75 + 171.7 = 663.1 dps
Warrior
Assume the warrior is in defensive stance (-10% damage) and does not need to keep Shield Block up or use Revenge to hold aggro. That gives warrior attacks as:
Assume the warrior has enough +block to get 600 damage shield slams on average (I've never experimented with SS on my warrior. Is that low or high?). So:
Paladin tank with unlimited mana: 663 dps
Warrior tank with unlimited rage: 392 dps
That's a huge lead for the paladin assuming my numbers are at all reasonable. The paladin's actual numbers will be a bit lower since I'm ignoring resists, but it's still around 50% more damage.
Improved Righteous Fury now decreases all damage taken by 6% (at 3/3 points) in addition to the previous effect.
Improved Divine Shield has been renamed Sacred Duty and now increases total stamina by 6% (at 2/2 points) in addition to the previous effects.
There's our quasi-def-stance, and a buff that shrinks the stamina gap with warriors a bit. All of it in talents that I was going to take anyway. Today is a good day.
My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
Prot warriors still generally superior because their passive mitigation remains slightly ahead and they have the guaranteed "no crit/no crush" move available which makes them so much better for tanks with physical spike damage, but a prot paladin will be a mathematically better choice of tank than an arms/fury warrior, and I think that was the goal prot paladins were looking for.
The paladin class has a clear purpose set out now: support, via healing (holy), secondary tanking and AOE tanking and tank-related buffs (prot) or via DPS and DPS-related buffs (ret).
Prot warriors still generally superior because their passive mitigation remains slightly ahead and they have the guaranteed "no crit/no crush" move available which makes them so much better for tanks with physical spike damage, but a prot paladin will be a mathematically better choice of tank than an arms/fury warrior, and I think that was the goal prot paladins were looking for.
The paladin class has a clear purpose set out now: support, via healing (holy), secondary tanking and AOE tanking and tank-related buffs (prot) or via DPS and DPS-related buffs (ret).
A tank spec paladin can come out ahead of a protection warrior in the following situations:
(1) Warrior's group/raid does not have an imp. sanct aura paladin.
(2) Damage is primarily from spells, and there is no imp. resist aura paladin in warrior's group/raid.
Have been doing some analysis of SoV....and it's mechanics are weird
1) The seal has a 0.67 coefficient with +Dmg. This is all applied to the first application of the debuff.
2) The base damage is as we know 30 damage per tick per application of the debuff.
3) The base damage is effected by +%dmg effects like vengeance and sanctity aura. The weird thing is, if at the first application a % modifier is currently on the paladin, then all subsequent applications will also have this % modifier applied to them even if the debuff is gone. Conversely, if you get one application on, then later vengeance procs, subsequent applications will not be modified by vengeance. ie.
4) The additional damage cause by +dmg is not subject to % modifiers such as vengeance, sanctity aura etc.
In all, it seems a little weird. It is good, but it is weird. Why a 12 sec DoT does not have the correct 0.80 coefficient is odd. Why all modifiers etc are based around the first application is also strange, and the fact that the additional damage cause by +dmg is not effected by modifiers is a little off.
Finally, i did a rough comparison on SoR and SoV in terms of dps. Sorry there are no calculations, but it appears:-
SoR = 25dps + 9 per 100 +dmg
SoV = 50dps + 5.6 per 100 +dmg
Thus SoV is far superior than SoR until extremely high levels of +dmg are reached, which will not be the case seeing as this would leave a tanking paladin without defence, stamina etc.
Anecdotally, the threat from a paladin tank is insane if they're prot. Mitigation falls a bit below Dreadnaught tanks (gasps all around, I'm sure), threat is under 41 prot- depending on the tank. The overall threat generation is really impressive, making a tankadin a great choice.
But the real reason I'm invadingthis thread is to point attention towards the T4 stuff, which has a really, really strong tankadin set. Looks like every stat you need. http://www.worldofraids.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1168
Cheers.
Originally Posted by bartolimu
It makes me want to hit Marge Thatcher on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
Without any gear, JoB does more damage than JoR. At around 250 spell (or 300 without Improved SoR talent), JoR will do more (if the reports from the current Blood Elf Paladins are correct, and JoB doesn't get anything at all from +spell). JoB crits for double damage like melee though.
You also lose a decent chunk of health if your JoB crits. Currently SoB/JoB isn't really good, unless you're looking for burst dmg without any other consideration. Might be good in some situations in PvP, but usually losing hps while you're dpsing isn't such a great idea, especially since SoC/JoC come pretty close in burst, and you can use +spell dmg to boost them which means you'll also have slightly bigger heals.
Has there been any noises in beta vis a bis imbalance between SoB and SoV? If Vengeance is the best tanking seal and Blood is a pvp toy at best, we're right back in a minor way to the whole thing which Horde pallies and Alliance shaman was meant to avoid, inequality between factions. They haven't gone for factional differences between shaman. It seems like a needless point to create friction around.
I don't see why Seal of Blood wouldn't be good in a tanking situation where you are getting constant heals. Doesn't it do more dps overall than vengeance does? 40% weapon damage every swing vs something that has a chance to apply.
40% weapon damage every swing vs something that has a chance to apply.
What difference does the chance to apply make? SoV should be very consistent damage due to its DoT nature. All that matters is that you refresh the DoT once every 12 seconds (after building up a 5 stack).
SoV also has a 20 PPM according to Kalgan. That gives it a 60+% chance to apply per swing to even moderately fast (2.0 AS) weapon.
Anywho, SoV at the baseline is 50 DPS. (120 damage over 12 seconds per application of the DoT; 10 DPS per application; 5 application cap.) Also gets something like 6% of your +dmg as DPS.
For SoB to match that, you need to do around 125 DPS. To make up for the health loss at a 1:1 ratio (doing more damage than SoV equal to the extra damage you're taking), that number needs to be a bit higher. (160+ or so, I think) It also doesn't get boosted by +dmg, which has become a pretty common paladin stat post 60.
11/02/06, 9:44 AM
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