[Paladin] SoV changes in 2.2?

Tuftears · 08/24/07, 8:35 PM

Some of you may remember that I posted a holy DPS paladin spreadsheet a long while ago:

Google Docs & Spreadsheets - Paladin Holy DPS 2

It's been a while, but I've gotten my paladin to level 70 and geared up to 660 +damage; more should be possible, given sufficient instance time. So far he seems to do about 500 DPS in places like Shadow Labyrinth and Shattered Hall, which is acceptable for his level of gear, IMO.

Questions:

* SoV was supposed to be modified to add a direct damage component if the stack was already at 5. Have we gotten the formula yet? I'd expect it to vary based on weapon speed and +damage, i.e. if you use a slow-hitting weapon, you'll get more per SoV proc to compensate for hitting them less often.

* Evidently SoV gets its DoT damage set on casting. I'm thinking that for a boss, I should be able to trinket and apply SoV, and it'll stay at the increased +damage indefinitely. Yes/no?

* If I pop Avenging Wrath (30% increased damage), will this only apply while it's up, or will the 30% increased damage continue indefinitely on the SoV debuff?

Right now my DPS pattern is more or less, judge Crusader, raise SoR, drop Consecration, trinket, pop Avenging Wrath, holy shock, judge/re-raise SoR... Stuff usually dies around that time, but if it goes on, then I just cycle Consecration, Holy Shock, and SoR as they're up.

For bosses... I'd like to know how SoV stacks up in the long run.

Cathela · 08/24/07, 10:07 PM

Originally Posted by Tuftears

* SoV was supposed to be modified to add a direct damage component if the stack was already at 5. Have we gotten the formula yet? I'd expect it to vary based on weapon speed and +damage, i.e. if you use a slow-hitting weapon, you'll get more per SoV proc to compensate for hitting them less often.

It's the same amount of damage regardless of weapon speed; slower weapons already have a higher chance to proc it, so there's no need for any other scaling.

I don't recall the exact results of my testing, but the damage-on-proc effect is extremely small -- something on the order of 20-25 damage per proc if you have 600-700 spelldamage on your gear. It's going to end up being a very modest increase in total dps.

doogless · 08/25/07, 12:31 AM

Since it's a stacking DoT, I would be very surprised if the damage on it isn't determined by the initial application - ie to maximize SoV damage, pop trinkets/AW/etc when you first apply it. Considering as how both scorpid poison and Lifebloom work this way, it's reasonable to expect that SoV will work the same.

Rudy · 08/25/07, 3:25 PM

Originally Posted by doogless

Since it's a stacking DoT, I would be very surprised if the damage on it isn't determined by the initial application - ie to maximize SoV damage, pop trinkets/AW/etc when you first apply it. Considering as how both scorpid poison and Lifebloom work this way, it's reasonable to expect that SoV will work the same.

A quick test confirms this, with almost no spell damage vengeance was ticking at a full 5 stacks for 164-165 unbuffed. Once the stack was started with AW it ticked for 214-215 even after the AW buff faded, as long as the stack was refreshed.

EDIT: Just did another quick test with ZHC, looks like trinketing before starting the stack works nicely as well.

Tuftears · 08/27/07, 6:47 PM

Originally Posted by Rudy

A quick test confirms this, with almost no spell damage vengeance was ticking at a full 5 stacks for 164-165 unbuffed. Once the stack was started with AW it ticked for 214-215 even after the AW buff faded, as long as the stack was refreshed.

Great tests, thanks, Rudy! I need to figure out how to get SoV into regular use then. And I should update my spreadsheet to account for AW and trinketing. And Divine Favor, for Holy Shock.

Originally Posted by Cathela

It's the same amount of damage regardless of weapon speed; slower weapons already have a higher chance to proc it, so there's no need for any other scaling.

I don't recall the exact results of my testing, but the damage-on-proc effect is extremely small -- something on the order of 20-25 damage per proc if you have 600-700 spelldamage on your gear. It's going to end up being a very modest increase in total dps.

Not quite what I meant. SoV's DoT is the same amount of damage, but I was curious about the direct damage part of SoV that gets applied if you already have five SoV debuffs on the target.

There are two possible scenarios I could see here:

* It's applying the DPS of a single tick of SoV, scaled to weapon speed, so it doesn't matter how fast your weapon is
* It's applying the DPS of a single tick of Sov, period, and a faster weapon would do more damage this way

We already know the SoR formula from WowWiki:

Originally Posted by WowWiki

Seal of Righteousness on a one-handed weapon. 22 + (2 * (WeaponSpeed*10) - 30) + (WeaponSpeed*0.092*SpellDamage) = Damage
Effectively, SoR gains 9.2% of spell damage per 1.0 of weapon speed.

So at least one paladin seal takes weapon speed into account.

In 2.2, SoV will do 150 damage over 15 secs - that's 30 damage per tick (3s) or 10 dps. If you imagine this is multiplied by weapon speed, then a 1.8 speed weapon should do 18 damage per direct hit.

This is needless to say, paltry... It also suggests that the direct damage part of SoV does not take into account any of your +damage.

But didn't Blizzard say they'd found a bug in SoV's damage? It's a known issue, at least, according to the forum post.

Tuftears · 08/28/07, 5:42 PM

Some more research: I found some interesting posts from the European WoW paladin forum that claim the direct damage from the direct damage part of SoV that gets applied if you have 5 stacks already is calculated as follows:

Weapon Speed * Spell Damage * 0.012

So with a 2.00 weapon and 1000 spell damage it will do 24damage, and yes it can crit proccing vengeance using spell crit, and it doesnt proc JoL or JoW.

However, the forum also claimed that SoV was being changed as follows: you will receive 17% of your spell damage to each tick of SoV per application, so with 5 stacks, you'd receive 85% of your spell damage on each tick.

If true, with 1000 +damage or so (ignoring JoCrusader and Sanctity aura and other effects) SoV would be doing... 5 * (30 + 170) or 2000 damage every 3 secs, or 666dps. That's not taking into account JoV or switching to and using SoR between refreshing the SoV ticks. Seems incredible...

I'll download the PTR at some point and see this first-hand sometimes, time permitting, but I was hoping some of our holy paladins had tried this already.

Fiola · 08/28/07, 6:08 PM

Originally Posted by Tuftears

...

However, the forum also claimed that SoV was being changed as follows: you will receive 17% of your spell damage to each tick of SoV per application, so with 5 stacks, you'd receive 85% of your spell damage on each tick.

Got any links? Hard to believe that they're changing it to work like that, since SoV would proceed to blow any other damage seal out of the water. (And make SoB look silly in comparison)

Last I checked on the PTR two months ago or so, SoV damage seemed to be doing 17~% at 5 stack, evenly split between each application. (Unlike v1.0, which applied the bonus to the first stack only)

Tuftears · 08/28/07, 7:36 PM

Looks like it was an old thread around May. Alas!

It may have been just a transient bug on PTR during that time period.