Just ran a small simulation that shows pretty dismal numbers for prot paladins after the SA nerf. (For the record, the nerf is that only net healing counts towards SA, so overheal does not grant mana).
Let's assume the following:
-Paladin will always use Holy Shield while it's available (28 mana/sec)
-Paladin will always use Consecrate while it's available (82.5 mana/sec)
-Paladin will always use Seal of Righteousness after Judgement (27.6 mana/sec)
-Paladin will always use Judgement when it's available (32 mana/sec)
[Consecrate is not really optional. In my experience, when I was tanking, Consecrate is what made the difference between keeping and losing a mob. On mobs that would leave consecrate, I found it much harder to retain aggro].
This means that a prot paladin is expending, on average, 170 mana a second on building aggro. This is the same whether a fight has just begun or a fight is well progressed.
Let's define the following:
- Paladins have lower HP and therefore are succeptable to being one rounded on crits. Paladins must keep their defense high and seek high avoidance/block in order to attempt to push crushing blows off the hit table. Because of these low hp, paladins are ALSO succeptable to being caught between holy shield/etc, taking two crushes and dying.
- With the new Holy Shield talent, holy shield should never be down and the paladin should never be crushed ... as long as they have sufficient avoidance.
The paladin in question will always have 6,000 mana for ease of calculation.
Let's assume the following about the mob:
- Two mob studies.
One for a mob that hits 1500 average.
One for a mob that hits 8000 average.
- Two mitigation studies on each mob.
One with a paladin at 50% avoidance, 50% block. (low end gear)
One with a paladin at 70% avoidance, 30% block. (high end gear)
- Let's assume the mob hits 2x every 3 seconds (probably about average).
- Let's ignore any spell damage that could alter this (and indeed, could make a pally tank nonviable to begin with).
The studies:
On the mob that hits for 8k (best case for pally tank post 2.1)
50% avoidance, 50% block
Average hit, factoring in averages for block/avoidance, is 3,850 damage a hit.
That is 7,700 damage per 3 seconds on average.
This requires 2.5k per second to heal.
Assuming that an average healer can maintain about 750 healing a second, this takes 3.4 healers to heal.
Incoming mana is 770 per 3 seconds.
Outgoing mana is 510 per 3 seconds.
Conclusion: This paladin will never run out of mana, but because he's taking SO MUCH damage, it is prohibitive to keep him alive. Needing 3.5 healers just to keep him up on a mob that hits for only 8k is a little ridiculous.
70% avoidance, 30% block
Average hit, factoring in averages for block/avoidance, is 2,310 damage a hit.
That is 4,620 damage per 3 seconds on average.
This requires 1.5k per second to heal.
Assuming that an average healer can maintain about 750 healing a second, this takes 2 healers to heal.
Incoming mana is 462 per 3 seconds.
Outgoing mana is 510 per 3 seconds.
Conclusion: This paladin will slowly loose mana on average. He will take some streaks of always being hit and gain some, he will take some streaks of always being missed and lose some. On average, he will lose 50 mana per 3 seconds. At the end of 3 minutes, said paladin is at half mana. At the end of 6 minutes, said paladin is out of mana.
The paladin can drink mana pots but that means that he will never have health pots to help escape close calls ... this makes the paladin further undesirable as a tank. Having health pots to help mitigate spike damage is IMPORTANT.
On the mob that hits for 1.5k (worst case for pally tank post 2.1)
50% avoidance, 50% block
Average hit, factoring in averages for block/avoidance, is 600 damage a hit.
That is 1200 damage per 3 seconds on average.
This requires 400 per second to heal.
Assuming that an average healer can maintain about 750 healing a second, this takes 1 healer to heal.
Incoming mana is 120 per 3 seconds.
Outgoing mana is 510 per 3 seconds.
Conclusion: Now we are starting to see where this nerf really hurts. The paladin, in this case, is hemmoraging mana. Even removing consecrate doesn't really help, as just JoR/SoR and HS will cause the paladin to lose more than 50-60 mana PER SECOND.
In order to not run out of mana against this mob, the paladin is going to have to majorly cut down on his aggro generation which renders him somewhat pointless as an OT. In a raid scenario, where he may be tanking a trash mob or two, this can be lethal to the raid.
The paladin, in this case, will run out of mana in 45 seconds. At this level of mana expenditure not even chugging super mana pots will prevent said paladin from running out of mana.
70% avoidance, 30% block
Average hit, factoring in averages for block/avoidance, is 360 damage a hit.
That is 720 damage per 3 seconds on average.
This requires 240 per second to heal.
Assuming that an average healer can maintain about 750 healing a second, this takes 0.3 healers to heal.
Incoming mana is 72 per 3 seconds.
Outgoing mana is 510 per 3 seconds.
Now you get to a truly worst case scenario. A highly geared paladin is tanking a mob with very little damage output. In this scenario, said paladin will be out of mana in just 40 seconds.
Conclusion:
The spiritual attunment nerf has two problems, effectively trapping paladin tanks between the proverbial rock and hard place.
1) If a paladin is ungeared enough to take enough damage so that Spiritual Attunment will allow him to keep a good mana pool, he will be taking enough damage so that healing him is effectively a no-go. This prevents paladin tanks from being viable.
2) If a paladin is geared enough so that he only requires a reasonable level of healing, Spiritual Attunment will not provide ENOUGH mana return and said paladin will run out of mana very quickly. This prevents paladin tanks from being viable.
In effect, prot paladins need some way to passively regenerate mana. Perhaps a 35 point talent that returns mana based on damage taken or something similar. It is quite clear, at present time, that not only will paladins not be viable, but due to current design they will only become less and less viable as better gear comes out for them.
- Yes, you can remove consecrate from this. With a spell damage weapon I put a paladin tank spamming these 4 abilities at 635 threat per second.
Consecration accounts for roughly 163 of that threat.
Dropping consecration (which is only 40-45% of the mana cost anyway) will reduce threat by 25%, dropping it down to sub 500 range. This is dangerous if there is anyone else that is building threat.
I do agree that this is problematic for content preceding 25-raids.
A few points:
- Nobody averages 70% avoidance. 50% avoid / 50% block for 350 is a solid approximation of nearly the best gear available. Add buffs and it'll be more like 55% / 45%.
- 750 HPS does not represent an average healer; more like a FoL spamming Prot pally such as myself. A mob that 'only' hits for 8k is quite dangerous to any tank and would only be seen in 25-mans. No Karazhan boss hits that hard.
In effect, prot paladins need some way to passively regenerate mana. Perhaps a 35 point talent that returns mana based on damage taken or something similar. It is quite clear, at present time, that not only will paladins not be viable, but due to current design they will only become less and less viable as better gear comes out for them.
And for the record, no Mp5 on Tanking gear is not the answer and we are still glad its off our tanking gear. Our Tankign plate is allready in a difficult situation as we require more stats to tank effectivelly than warriors.
- Nobody averages 70% avoidance. 50% avoid / 50% block for 350 is a solid approximation of nearly the best gear available. Add buffs and it'll be more like 55% / 45%.
With BT gear (T6, etc) and all of the best optimized pre-BT stuff and all +8 parry gems at the new parry rating amount, you'd have:
11.27% chance to be missed
29.50% dodge
30.06% parry
That's 70.8% avoidance.
Yes, nobody averages it now, but I decided to use the current 'average profile' as the 'low gear' one and estimate where paladins would fall in a few months. As you can see, longevity of a prot paladin goes DOWN with better gear. That's a problem in and of itself. (Afterall, to tank better instances more effectively, should I really have to trade out gear for crappier gear?)
And for the record, no Mp5 on Tanking gear is not the answer and we are still glad its off our tanking gear. Our Tankign plate is allready in a difficult situation as we require more stats to tank effectivelly than warriors.
Seconding this.
It's not mana/5 that's the problem - that would be a useless allocation of stat points that are NEEDED elsewhere. With enough mp/5 to alleviate the problem we would be unable to tank at all due to rock bottomed mitigation numbers.
It's some sort of passive mana regen, similar to SA (but can indeed by different) that is required.
Drawing attention to the nerf is rather unnecessary. The only 1 of those 4 simulations that would benefit enough from 20-50% overheal would be case 2, the theoretical case of 70% pure avoidance with 8k hits, and in that case you find a very good reason to stack stamina instead of avoidance (less danger of death by burst, more incoming mana through SA).
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the writeup and agree that SA by itself is lacking in most any situation where the paladin tank is actually feasable, I just don't think the nerf should be the focal point of this discussion.
Drawing attention to the nerf is rather unnecessary. The only 1 of those 4 simulations that would benefit enough from 20-50% overheal would be case 2, the theoretical case of 70% pure avoidance with 8k hits, and in that case you find a very good reason to stack stamina instead of avoidance (less danger of death by burst, more incoming mana through SA).
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the writeup and agree that SA by itself is lacking in most any situation where the paladin tank is actually feasable, I just don't think the nerf should be the focal point of this discussion.
It's not, really... the effects it has are.
Note that nowhere did I suggest or imply that SA should be un-nerfed. The change that I called for was another talent, sitting at say, the 35 point level, that would add in some latent mana regen... such as mana regen from damage dealt or taken.
This type change would only affect prot paladins/would not affect holy paladins at all.
Something that operates exactly like SA on incoming damage would solve every tanking problem that paladins have. Taking 7000 damage and receiving 350 mana (just 5%) would solve the issue completely and totally. It may even make it feasible for a pally tank to heal himself ... something that would actually add USE to having a prot paladin during some fights.
Note that nowhere did I suggest or imply that SA should be un-nerfed. The change that I called for was another talent, sitting at say, the 35 point level, that would add in some latent mana regen... such as mana regen from damage dealt or taken.
The Talents are allready heavy comes next patch. I'm looking at a 51 points prot build.. They need to be combined.. Suggesting yet another talent is not a good idea. We have to change the existing talents to suit this idea.
Heavy or not, Improved SA would have to be a bottom-end prot talent. If they improve the mana returns by default, Paladins will sit inside of cleaves or AEs intentionally to soak up VE healing. At 10% that isn't lucrative, at 20-25% it might be worth the risk. It should be combined with an existing talent though, like the spell damage reduction talent. As it stands 10% is completely insufficient for actually tanking and anything more than that will have paladins acting like punching bags to leech mana from shadow priests.
On the mob that hits for 1.5k (worst case for pally tank post 2.1)
50% avoidance, 50% block
Average hit, factoring in averages for block/avoidance, is 600 damage a hit.
That is 1200 damage per 3 seconds on average.
This requires 400 per second to heal.
Assuming that an average healer can maintain about 750 healing a second, this takes 1 healer to heal.
Incoming mana is 120 per 3 seconds.
Outgoing mana is 510 per 3 seconds.
Conclusion: Now we are starting to see where this nerf really hurts. The paladin, in this case, is hemmoraging mana. Even removing consecrate doesn't really help, as just JoR/SoR and HS will cause the paladin to lose more than 50-60 mana PER SECOND.
In order to not run out of mana against this mob, the paladin is going to have to majorly cut down on his aggro generation which renders him somewhat pointless as an OT. In a raid scenario, where he may be tanking a trash mob or two, this can be lethal to the raid.
The paladin, in this case, will run out of mana in 45 seconds. At this level of mana expenditure not even chugging super mana pots will prevent said paladin from running out of mana.
I see this sort of thing and I wonder what sort of mob you're fighting that you need to maintain a max threat cycle for more than 45 seconds, and keep it up for more than 45 seconds.
Anything that hits for only 1500 is more than likely trash or an add. The closest example I can come to is a Magtheridon add. And they hit for 60% more than that. And they must be DPS'd down in less than 45 seconds anyways.
Assuming you do 635 TPS at that rotation. 45 seconds affords you 28575 Threat. Assuming a fairly low dps raid where you have 8 healers and 4 Tanks, you have 13 DPS. Now, assuming that all of your DPS have salv, but no other threat reducing talents (for simplicity). Each DPS can do 47625 before equalling your threat. Now all ranged DPS does 130% damage before pulling, and all melee DPS has at least a 20% threat reduction. So we'll assume just everyone has a 20% threat reduction (lots of dps warriors!) Each player can now do 59,000 Damage before pulling. That means that said imaginary mob can have 770,000 hit points before your raid DPS become threat limited.
Now, show me a mob that has more than 3/4 of a million HPs, who needs to be tanked, and who only hits for 1500, and I'll judge wisdom on him, bless myself with wisdom and drink a mana potion. I might even eat a mana/5 fish and put mana oil on my weapon.
I think for reference (correct me if I'm wrong) Magtheridon's adds have about 240,000 and even the first one hits for 2500.
Last edited by zeidrich : 05/02/07 at 6:56 PM.
Reason: said dps when I meant damage
Ideally they'd add a function to an existing talent that makes paladins in tanking gear more useful even when not tanking.
Perhaps a talent that gives a % of your stamina as mp5, or damage/healing to make your mana more efficient
Shouldn't be something that could help our healing, or else the primary reason for nerfing SA would be negated. Such a talent would help as much a tank as a healer.
Think something related to the damage received or done should be okey and in line with warrior rage mechanics. Even something as simple as upping the current percentage of SA.
Fortunately I have all the gear and heroic keys necessary so I don't need to ever run a regular 5-man again after this patch. Mana situation is already bad now (I hate to slow down instance clears with my drinking if a shadowpriest isn't around).
OTOH, what are exactly the aggro mechanics of JoW? Does it generate aggro to the paladin that judged it, to the character getting the proc or just no aggro at all?
Ideally they'd add a function to an existing talent that makes paladins in tanking gear more useful even when not tanking.
Perhaps a talent that gives a % of your stamina as mp5, or damage/healing to make your mana more efficient
I agree with that, but I'd like to see the same sort of thing to make prot warriors in tanking gear do more DPS even when not tanking.
I really think that Warriors should have respectable damage even in tank gear, Paladins should have respectable healing even in tank gear, and druids have respectable damage and healing even in tank gear. Currently druids are the only ones who come near that.
I'm tired of the defense "Warriors give up everything to tank". I think that all roles should be represented to a reasonable extent regardless of spec.
Shouldn't be something that could help our healing, or else the primary reason for nerfing SA would be negated. Such a talent would help as much a tank as a healer.
Put it 35 points into the prot tree and it would help a tank who's healing after he's done tanking more than a full-time healer.
Ideally they'd add a function to an existing talent that makes paladins in tanking gear more useful even when not tanking.
That's not really what we are talking about though. The problem is not when we are not tanking. It's when we are tanking and unable to keep generating threat because we run ourselves out of mana.
The reason for the nerf to SA was due to Holy paladins having virtually infinite man when given a shadow priest coupled with all the crit on the new plate healing gear and the Illumination talent. They chose to take out the huge nerf bat and hit both culprits of infinite mana at the same time. Of course they have then ended up making Prot Paladins even less viable than they already are.
I think they need to tie SA into whether you currently have Righteous Fury up or not. No healer will want to have righteous fury up and generate all the extra aggro. This would allow protection paladins to have the regen they need without overpowering the regen of holy paladins.
I think they need to tie SA into whether you currently have Righteous Fury up or not.
I think that's the most elegant and easy fix they could do actually.. making it part of righteous fury. (Imp RF could increase the % of SA as well) But keeping overheal still replenishing mana.
Regenning mana through SA now has a drawback of having high aggro. I like that.
I think that's the most elegant and easy fix they could do actually.. making it part of righteous fury. (Imp RF could increase the % of SA as well) But keeping overheal still replenishing mana.
Regenning mana through SA now has a drawback of having high aggro. I like that.
Is it really much of a drawback, though? Paladins have a naturally lower healing aggro than other classes. Popping RF for the SA wouldn't even put them on equal footing regarding aggro per HP healed.
This looks a little dismal. I have a couple pally tanks who play quite well, and I'd prefer to keep them tanking.
Originally Posted by Solipse
In effect, prot paladins need some way to passively regenerate mana.
For some reason, a long time ago I was under the impression Paladins regained mana based on the damage they took. That's effectively the equivalent of a rage-based generation (sans damage based rage), but it would seem to fit here for pally tanking. Why not change spiritual attunement to regen mana based on incoming damage just like warrior/bear rage is generated based on... incoming damage? Bears/warriors generate rage via white damage, while pallies can gain mana thru mp5, JoW. It's not perfectly the same, but it seems much closer to a decent solution.
Post 2.1, given the above descriptions, I'm not sure what a pally would tank beyond adds in most boss fights. I know pallies can tank all of Kara currently, will that be true post patch? Any pallies tanking in 25 man content currently that think they will no longer be able to post patch due to the above scenario?
The SA/spriest problem would go away if SA restored mana based on incoming damage rather than the healing, it would also give paladins more value in fights with AoE damage being thrown about, but not much more due to them regaining mana if someone else heals them of that damage currently.
Just ran a small simulation that shows pretty dismal numbers for prot paladins after the SA nerf. (For the record, the nerf is that only net healing counts towards SA, so overheal does not grant mana).
Let's assume the following:
-Paladin will always use Holy Shield while it's available (28 mana/sec)
-Paladin will always use Consecrate while it's available (82.5 mana/sec)
-Paladin will always use Seal of Righteousness after Judgement (27.6 mana/sec)
-Paladin will always use Judgement when it's available (32 mana/sec)
[Consecrate is not really optional. In my experience, when I was tanking, Consecrate is what made the difference between keeping and losing a mob. On mobs that would leave consecrate, I found it much harder to retain aggro].
This means that a prot paladin is expending, on average, 170 mana a second on building aggro. This is the same whether a fight has just begun or a fight is well progressed.
So your paladin tank chooses to maximize threat, using every single spell that increases threat no matter the mana efficiency or cost.
Why is it necessary for the paladin to be able to sustain that indefinitely? A mage who spams Arcane Blast will run himself out of mana quickly - does that indicate that mages need more mana regen tools on top of what they have?
Rage tanks have to manage their CDs and rage usage. All mana users have to manage their mana to some extent. Why is it wrong that a paladin tank should manage their mana too?
So your paladin tank chooses to maximize threat, using every single spell that increases threat no matter the mana efficiency or cost.
Why is it necessary for the paladin to be able to sustain that indefinitely? A mage who spams Arcane Blast will run himself out of mana quickly - does that indicate that mages need more mana regen tools on top of what they have?
Rage tanks have to manage their CDs and rage usage. All mana users have to manage their mana to some extent. Why is it wrong that a paladin tank should manage their mana too?
Because if we don't go to close to all out, we will lose aggro in most situations. I wouldn't mind managing my mana in raids, but the time i drop consecration off the cycle, the time I lose aggro.
With 200 +dmg I usually go at around 600-650ish tps, getting to low 700s if I can include Exorcism in the cycle. That's going close to all out.
If Blizz wants me to manage my mana (and certainly I'm doing that already in 5-mans), fine, but up my threat.
Warriors have this same issue - if you outgear the mob and stack too much avoidance, you don't generate enough rage to tank mobs vs the equally overgeared DPS.
The solution's the same in both cases as well: Put on some DPS gear. You up your threat per second and threat per mana, and you take more damage, allowing the healers to heal more of it, and therefore regen more mana as well.
I'm looking at the numbers you posted (particularly in the "# of healers needed" area) and seeing reasonable consistencies - you're talking about a T5 geared paladin having problems tanking a 5 man boss (requiring 1 healer) in their full tank suit ... this is similar to a equally geared warrior's experience on a similar mob. They can go forver on a mob that requires 4 healers (raid mob, warriors can also pretty much go forever on them with nearly endless rage).
I don't know, but it seems to be fairly balanced to me - like someone else said, this isn't about SA - even if you were able to regain mana while being at full health, you're basically wasting healer mana to do basic tasks and aren't optimal anyway.
The solution's the same in both cases as well: Put on some DPS gear. You up your threat per second and threat per mana, and you take more damage, allowing the healers to heal more of it, and therefore regen more mana as well.
We can't do that currently. We are not warriors. We allready have to do gear gymnastics to be crush immune with Holy shield. If we wanna have anything that can be called decent mitigation we can't go all out on threat (+dmg gear).
I had this problem tanking gruul. It not like i outgeared it.. I was taking a lot of damage and DPS had to hold back to not pull from me. And i was blowing everything i had at him.
Not only i had threat problems on him while blowing everything, i won't be able to blow everything next patch.. I'm barely tough enough to tank him now, i can't put more dps gear and still stand vertical.
05/02/07, 5:47 PM
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