Parryhaste and raid bosses

A Man In Black · 11/23/08, 5:28 PM

Are we sure that bosses still parry haste? I've been seeing rumor-ish posts here and on Tankspot that it may be gone, on most or all bosses, and I'm having difficulty actually finding examples of parryhaste in Naxx WWSes. Instead, I'm seeing swings consistently falling within the margin of latency, whereas the parryhaste was clear on previous bosses, particularly some of Kara's.

A Faerlina example, from this Disbanded WWS:
18:41'17.734
Grand Widow Faerlina attack was dodged by Slymeran.
18:41'18.359
Slymeran Shield Slam was parried by Grand Widow Faerlina.
18:41'19.765
Grand Widow Faerlina attack misses Slymeran.

18:41'58.406
Grand Widow Faerlina melee swing hits Slymeran for 7356 Physical. (2118 Blocked)
18:41'58.547
Slymeran Devastate was parried by Grand Widow Faerlina.
18:42'00.812
Grand Widow Faerlina melee swing hits Slymeran for 8978 Physical.

A Patchwerk example, from the DK tanking discussion here on EJ:
12:56'16.938 - Patchwerk Melee
12:56'17.885 - Patchwerk Parries
12:56'17.885 - Patchwerk Melee
12:56'18.769 - Patchwerk Melee

13:12'54.798 Grobbulus melee swing hits Canns for 10658 Physical.
13:12'55.555 Canns attack was parried by Grobbulus.
13:12'56.798 Grobbulus attack was dodged by Canns.
13:12'57.085 Canns Heroic Strike was parried by Grobbulus.
13:12'58.816 Grobbulus attack was dodged by Canns.
13:13'00.814 Grobbulus melee swing hits Canns for 4188 Physical. (1556 Blocked) (4194 Absorbed)
13:13'02.714 Canns Heroic Strike was parried by Grobbulus.
13:13'02.835 Grobbulus melee swing hits Canns for 6023 Physical. (3112 Blocked)
13:13'04.835 Grobbulus melee swing hits Canns for 7609 Physical. (3112 Blocked)
13:13'06.846 Grobbulus melee swing hits Canns for 9619 Physical.
13:13'09.437 Grobbulus melee swing hits Canns for 9977 Physical.
13:13'11.915 Grobbulus melee swing hits Canns for 9971 Physical.
13:13'13.877 Grobbulus melee swing hits Canns for 9568 Physical.

Montegomery · 11/23/08, 9:37 PM

It seems very likely, given the data, that parry haste has been removed. This doesn't surprise me given that the precise nature of the mechanic was unintuitive and it made expertise arguably the best tanking stat. While the change has no major implications for melee DPS it would obviously have implications for what stats tanks look for.

Effectively, Strength will be the only stat left with strong threat and mitigation components for most tanks (save Feral Druids, who instead have Agility).

• frmorrison · 11/24/08, 11:07 AM

It seems the "parry flag" has been turned on for at least some of the Naax bosses.

Interested to see 5-man logs, to see if parry haste is gone or just the flag is turned on.

Montegomery · 11/24/08, 11:43 AM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

It seems the "parry flag" has been turned on for at least some of the Naax bosses.

Interested to see 5-man logs, to see if parry haste is gone or just the flag is turned on.

When you say "on" do you mean that an active flag denotes a boss with parry haste or vice versa? Have you seen post-expansion WWS that show any particular bosses who still have parry haste?

okkita · 11/24/08, 12:29 PM

VERY interested on this. I think it'd be a sweeping change if they did in fact remove parry-haste.

Andrast · 11/24/08, 5:01 PM

Originally Posted by Darian_TruBlade

When you say "on" do you mean that an active flag denotes a boss with parry haste or vice versa? Have you seen post-expansion WWS that show any particular bosses who still have parry haste?

It was assumed that there is a flag since they removed parry-hasting from bosses such as Halazzi, Brutallus and Mother. We are trying to figure out if parry-hasting still exists so any example from any mob in Northrend would be interesting. Currently we have none.

Ati · 11/25/08, 6:06 AM

I'm also very interested to see whether this is gone or not. It will be easier to achieve nice avoidance stats. I could try some testing on normal mobs once I get home.

Montegomery · 11/25/08, 12:51 PM

Originally Posted by Andrast

It was assumed that there is a flag since they removed parry-hasting from bosses such as Halazzi, Brutallus and Mother. We are trying to figure out if parry-hasting still exists so any example from any mob in Northrend would be interesting. Currently we have none.

That's not exactly what I was getting at. frmorrison was rather vague when he talked about turning a flag on for some Naxx bosses. Intuitively turning a flag on would activate something, which made it sound as though he was claiming some specific bosses in Naxx have parry haste. This would have immediately, with evidence, clarified whether parry haste was removed entirely or from specific bosses.

Now I may simply not have been privy to some past conversation about the bosses you mentioned wherein everyone settled on this way of phrasing the conversation, but for anyone who wasn't a part of that conversation it's a very confusing way to frame the discussion. Functionally speaking there's no difference, it just goes against the common usage of flags.

Gort · 11/25/08, 3:26 PM

Originally Posted by Darian_TruBlade

That's not exactly what I was getting at. frmorrison was rather vague when he talked about turning a flag on for some Naxx bosses. Intuitively turning a flag on would activate something, which made it sound as though he was claiming some specific bosses in Naxx have parry haste. This would have immediately, with evidence, clarified whether parry haste was removed entirely or from specific bosses.

Now I may simply not have been privy to some past conversation about the bosses you mentioned wherein everyone settled on this way of phrasing the conversation, but for anyone who wasn't a part of that conversation it's a very confusing way to frame the discussion. Functionally speaking there's no difference, it just goes against the common usage of flags.

Actually, the flag specifically refers to the ability of those bosses to have their attacks hasted. It may be related to how they parry--I'm afraid I don't recall--but regardless, the net effect is "bosses with this flag set do not haste their attacks". This has been historically done to enraging/hard-hitting bosses such as Patchwerk, Halazzi, Mother, and so forth, where the normal attacks are so strong that a haste will tend to gib the tank, leaving success in part to RNG effect.

In this case, the implication would therefore be "specific bosses in Naxx have had their parry haste capability removed", which makes sense given the nature of the particular encounters.

I would suspect, given Blizzard's openness about other mechanics changes such as crush removal, their specific statements that DK DW tanking was discouraged due to parries among other things, diminishing returns, etc, that there has been no change to the haste mechanic.

Ati · 11/25/08, 4:29 PM

Originally Posted by Gort

I would suspect, given Blizzard's openness about other mechanics changes such as crush removal, their specific statements that DK DW tanking was discouraged due to parries among other things, diminishing returns, etc, that there has been no change to the haste mechanic.

Where did you read that statement, I must have missed it..

From what I can see on normal mobs, they do not parry haste. Unequipped my weapon, spent minutes beating on different mobs and none of them seem to speed up when they parry my attacks. I'm to low to test it out in a raid environment.

Enova · 11/25/08, 4:44 PM

It would be interesting to try a reverse approach, and see if at least players can trigger haste effects when they parry.

I'm going to try and get myself [The Blackrock Slicer] and some parry gear, find a willing healer and spec my warrior out of Flurry, then start auto attacking on the Blasted Lands mobs.

Gort · 11/25/08, 5:13 PM

Originally Posted by Ati

Where did you read that statement, I must have missed it..

From what I can see on normal mobs, they do not parry haste. Unequipped my weapon, spent minutes beating on different mobs and none of them seem to speed up when they parry my attacks. I'm to low to test it out in a raid environment.

References:

Weapon choice, from here:

Our intentions are for Death Knights to tank with two-handed DPS weapons, but we want dual-wielding to be viable as well, so we are not going to prevent you from tanking with two tanking swords for an example. If it turns out that all Death Knights choose dual-wielding for tanking, then we will of course do something about that, like for an example making the +parry rune enchants only work on two-handed weapons to compensate for the lack of mitigation on two-handed weapons.

This should not be interpreted as threat towards those of you who prefer to dual-wield, but we are simply not interested in seeing every Death Knight tank with dual-wielding weapons.

Parry haste, from here:

I don't think the parry speed up should be a major factor in 5-player instances. It may come into play in some raid encounters, but without crushing blows you shouldn't hit too many big number in a row even in those cases.

Now it is possible that DK mitigation is just too low. It isn't our intent that you go put together an awesome tanking set while leveling up to do Nexus and Halls of Stone. We are tuning those instances so that you don't need them, but also realize that a lot of people who are running them now are doing so in Sunwell gear and are basing their experiences on that.

We recently made some changes to improve DK tankining.

Thanks for the feedback.

If there has been something to contradict/negate these statements, I am unaware of it. Frankly, from the latter one, I think any class-specificity is irrelevant, as they specifically mention the ability in terms of its continued existence.

Lazare · 11/25/08, 5:14 PM

Originally Posted by Gort

Actually, the flag specifically refers to the ability of those bosses to have their attacks hasted. It may be related to how they parry--I'm afraid I don't recall--but regardless, the net effect is "bosses with this flag set do not haste their attacks". This has been historically done to enraging/hard-hitting bosses such as Patchwerk, Halazzi, Mother, and so forth, where the normal attacks are so strong that a haste will tend to gib the tank, leaving success in part to RNG effect.

In this case, the implication would therefore be "specific bosses in Naxx have had their parry haste capability removed", which makes sense given the nature of the particular encounters.

If "the flag specifically refers to the ability of those bosses to have their attacks hasted", as you say, then - logically - turning the flag on would mean that those bosses did have their attacks hasted by parry. For clarity we should either talk about how "Halazzi had the parry-haste flag turned off" or "Halazzi had the no-parry-haste flag turned on". Trying to mix ideas, as both you and frmorrison have done, is only going to be confusing.

More to the point, I think Enova's approach has a good chance of settling this fast. If players no longer benefit from parry haste, it's good odds that no mobs do. Although if that change has been made, it raises the question of whether its a bug; it's a surprisingly big change to be made without comment. Also, I believe parry and dodge still have different costs in the item budget; without parry haste that no longer makes much sense.

Edit: Nevermind about pet positioning. I get confused easily.

Darkmantle · 11/25/08, 7:05 PM

Originally Posted by Lazare

..also this would make the positioning code on pets to make them attack from behind completely pointless as well, doesn't it?

From the perspective of tank deaths, yes. From the perspective of pets not dying to cleaves and not having parried attacks, no.

A Man In Black · 11/25/08, 7:29 PM

Originally Posted by Lazare

If "the flag specifically refers to the ability of those bosses to have their attacks hasted", as you say, then - logically - turning the flag on would mean that those bosses did have their attacks hasted by parry. For clarity we should either talk about how "Halazzi had the parry-haste flag turned off" or "Halazzi had the no-parry-haste flag turned on". Trying to mix ideas, as both you and frmorrison have done, is only going to be confusing.

More to the point, I think Enova's approach has a good chance of settling this fast. If players no longer benefit from parry haste, it's good odds that no mobs do. Although if that change has been made, it raises the question of whether its a bug; it's a surprisingly big change to be made without comment. Also, I believe parry and dodge still have different costs in the item budget; without parry haste that no longer makes much sense. ...also this would make the positioning code on pets to make them attack from behind completely pointless as well, doesn't it?

Why don't we just say "Bosses parry-haste" or "Bosses do not parry-haste"? All this nonsense about flags just confuses things.

If parry-haste is gone for PCs, the only benefit of parry is that it has separate diminishing returns.

As for pets attacking from behind, all melee DPS should still DPS from behind, parry-haste or no, because of cleaves, cone attacks, and the fact that parried attacks (which can only be parried from the front) don't do any damage.