The largest issue I see with resto is the lack luster talents deep in the tree. With Uldaar itemization, we have the ability to take more points out of GotEM. Considering this is our major 5/5 talent in our tree, I am curious to see if Blizzard will alter the talent to encourage people to not remove points at higher gear levels. Also, it seems at a glance the change to Replenish will not be enough to encourage point investment.
As long as you have enough targets to reasonably get a high likelihood of swipe getting one crit, more targets will not help you.
More targets will in fact hurt you. If I'm tanking 5 mobs I have a reasonably good chance of Swipe critting on one. Now I get a shield for one of the next attacks, but the other 4 mobs are now hitting me harder due to the armor nerf.
Savage Defense has some interesting implications for feral PVP. Reducing spell damage with that will further improve the usefulness of bear PVP for survivability. A lot depends on the implementation, though; will a tic of a DoT/Bleed remove the buff?
I don't know that it's a good thing to encourage even more bear form use for PVP, but that seems quite likely, if this goes through with no cooldowns. Of course, if the armor reduction is severe, we could end up worse off against fast hitting opponents, especially those with stuns (see: Rogues.)
Probably stating the obvious, but this also draws a more firm line in the sand between bears and cats given that many pure cat ferals don't spec into Protector of the Pack. Less AP, less absorb, less use as a sometimes ot.
Let's make a comparison between Savage Defense and armor. Let's assume that you have 38k armor, 7k AP, and that the boss hits for 40k pre-mitigation. 38k armor reduces that hit to 12,179. Now let's say that you had a Savage Defense shield up, which knocks off 1750 damage, and the final hit was 12,179. In that case the original hit was 13,929, which occurs if you have 31,136 armor. That means the shield was worth 6,864 armor. Of course, it's less reliable than straight armor, but it's quite powerful and probably works on spells too.
Assuming 38k armor and 7k AP the shield would be equivalent to 4716 armor not 6864.
Assuming 38k armor DR is --> 0.695524847
Boss hits for --> 40000
Damage reduction --> 27820.99387
Hits for --> 12179.00613
SD is 25% AP --> 1750
Hits for after SD shield--> 10429.00613
Total DR --> 29570.99387
As a percent --> 0.739274847
Worth in Armor -> 4716
Makapuu, I think you're looking at it the wrong way; he was saying if you took the same damage from before but used a shield, how much armor would that be worth? So yes, you'd need 42k armor to get the same result if you were at 38k; but if you were at 38k and then got nerfed to 31k, the shield would roughly compensate.
The SD shield will buff soloing bears pretty significantly with both iLOTP and the shield... Possibly to the point of prot pallies.
Because the shield is uncontrollable though, you can never count on it for worst-case survivability unless you're dealing with long spell cast times. It's both a shift to more magic and less physical mitigation, and less guaranteed physical mitigation.
Also, the average time-to-activate isn't indicative of # of blocks-- if you crit twice before the boss hits you, you don't get 2 shields. Also, when you dodge, you don't lose your shield (hopefully). So the uptime is going to be a complicated formula involving boss damage, boss swing timer, player AP, player crit, player avoidance, player haste, player hit rating (more hits = more chances of crits on 2-roll attacks), and expertise (same as hit but twice as effective, plus not speeding up the boss swing timer).
Essentially, every stat except armor penetration becomes a tanking stat.
I think its a little bit too early to be drawing any hard conclusions based on what we have been told though, since no numbers were provided that we can work with. I guess we'll be waiting until the PTR then to figure out these changes.
I think its a little bit too early to be drawing any hard conclusions based on what we have been told though, since no numbers were provided that we can work with. I guess we'll be waiting until the PTR then to figure out these changes.
Just from Bronakk's statements, I really don't think that it's really going to change much for druids. In consistent, high damage scenarios, there's very little time spent out of the 5sr because of all of our instants and short casts, and we have plenty of buttons to fill GCD's with in high raid damage situations as well.
If anything, this makes spirit a more desirable stat, because the effective innervate ceiling(where innervate regenerates more than 100% of your mana) will be much higher than it is currently.
--
Warrior (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)
* You now gain rage when damage done to you is absorbed, such as through a Power Word: Shield.
--
With the new Savage Defense I hope that druids get something similar to this where the damage absorbed by SD still gives us rage. Otherwise it will negatively affect us when we overgear an instance such as a normal 5man. I know it's not a huge issue but it was a constant complaint from warriors in BC and something that Blizzard acknowledged as a problem. The one hit removal regardless of damage will mediate this but I do hope that applies to actual hits and not random dot ticks.
I think its a little bit too early to be drawing any hard conclusions based on what we have been told though, since no numbers were provided that we can work with. I guess we'll be waiting until the PTR then to figure out these changes.
(Resto)
We should get very little loss in our regeneration from these changes as we were not really using the OO5SR that often at all on important encounters. Innervate will suffer to a degree that is based on the reduction on the formula and it might even make the Glyph near required to get a full return of mana from it, but we cannot really say until numbers come out.
The most annoying thing about this change is that it raises the podium on which Int stands while it lords over the ever weakening Spirit stat.
In terms of Regeneration you should end up seeing Int go from 0.57 to around 0.48-0.53~, and Spirit should go from around 0.33 to 0.18-0.23~ but that is subjective on the numbers we see come out on the PTR. MP5 becomes a slightly more valuable stat due to this change but that mostly comes down to the other two stats becoming weaker, Spirit really will suffer from this change which is sad considering it was struggling to keep up with Int at the best of times.
All this is tied to the way the OO5SR regeneration change hurts Innervate. If Innervate was also modified to retain a similar value as it has pre 3.1 then there will be no real problem with this change and everything is fine (Priests do not really get effected in as significant a way as we are thanks to Innervate).
I think its a little bit too early to be drawing any hard conclusions based on what we have been told though, since no numbers were provided that we can work with. I guess we'll be waiting until the PTR then to figure out these changes.
What I was wondering when I read this changes is this:
Originally Posted by Bornakk
We are also taking a close look at clearcasting procs themselves. One likely outcome is to change them to an Innervate-like surge of mana so that the net benefit is the same, but healers won’t shift to out-of-casting regeneration so often.
Well, what's the implication for cats?
1) The clearcasting proc is replaced with an energy proc
2) It stays the same
3) Changed to Vitality like mechanic
4) ?
About Savage Defense: the concept of a shield dropping after 1st attack seems quite unhappy to me. It probably works fine on bosses (though more spiky than armor), but it is quite ineffective on AoE packs. You may have it up every 1.5 second (swipe), but when you are attacked by 10 mobs, then 1 blocked attack means nothing. And we already are in disadvantage here against classes that can block.
I again support my feelings about guilds running onto Ulduar in the very beginning of the instance and even as casters, having defense talents. You see, they are adjusting things to not look as easy as WotLK start was. These days any dirty pug can run thru and defeat all raid content so far, they can even do achievements Now, I guess people will still run into starter raid instances as pugs and then joining as a guild for real content challenges. While well established guilds from pre-WotLK (or pre-BC) found this new expansion easier than expected, things now should begin to be challenging. Mobs doing a hell lot of damage, damage reduction talents and spells on all specs, mana regeneration adjusments, yeah, for me it makes sense what Blizzard is doing. We will see a decrease on our damage for Ulduar, otherwise 15k damages will be white damage. For either mobs or for any player.
About Savage Defense: the concept of a shield dropping after 1st attack seems quite unhappy to me. It probably works fine on bosses (though more spiky than armor), but it is quite ineffective on AoE packs. You may have it up every 1.5 second (swipe), but when you are attacked by 10 mobs, then 1 blocked attack means nothing. And we already are in disadvantage here against classes that can block.
When are bears tanking 10 mobs on any difficult content?
And one blocked attack can be equivalent to 10 mobs hitting more armor depending on how hard they hit, how much armor you're losing and how fast they're hitting. Armor really isn't that big a deal against soft-hitting mobs compared to how much a shield could block.
About Savage Defense: the concept of a shield dropping after 1st attack seems quite unhappy to me. It probably works fine on bosses (though more spiky than armor), but it is quite ineffective on AoE packs. You may have it up every 1.5 second (swipe), but when you are attacked by 10 mobs, then 1 blocked attack means nothing. And we already are in disadvantage here against classes that can block.
So far i am quite disappointed with it.
I honestly don't think AoE tanking was that bad the way it is. Sure they are able to block, but we have armor which partially offsets the disadvantage of not having block.
With that said, the nerf to armor to compensate for this buff is pretty delicate, and we really need to see how much armor we lose to determine what kind of relationship we'll have with these changes.
What I was wondering when I read this changes is this:
Well, what's the implication for cats?
1) The clearcasting proc is replaced with an energy proc
2) It stays the same
3) Changed to Vitality like mechanic
4) ?
Well, I guess we'll have to wait for the PTR.
Just speculation, but number 1 seems pretty likely. It already exists for rogues, after all (Combat Potency). It would also:
Simplify cat DPS slightly (no DPS lost for using a proc on the wrong ability)
Significantly reduce the number of swipes we'd be able to spam during very short AoE packs (no free ones, since the return would almost definitely be less than 45 energy per proc)
Reduce our burst damage against single targets / players (same reason, less free energy all in one proc)
I don't know how the first two things align with Blizzard's ideas for the class, but I know they've been concerned with cat burst damage in PvP.
On the other hand, it would interact with Berserk in a way that doesn't happen with Combat Potency and Adrenaline Rush: OOC procs would double in value for any proc that could be spent during a Berserk. It would probably have to be balanced around that, but it would make the choice of using Berserk during Heroism/Bloodlust much more appealing.
Against 10 mobs, assume that you're maul/swiping. You'll land on average 2 hits every 2 seconds from maul, plus 10 hits times 1.5 seconds with swipe. Assume 33% crit, and you have independent 5/9 blocks every 2 seconds and a 96% block every 1.5 seconds. Enemy swing timers of 1.5 seconds, and you get 10-15% total damage mitigated (assuming the swings are for less than your total attack). And that's at 0 avoidance-- at 50% avoidance you're eliminating 20-30% of damage.
The full 66% armor buff we get from SOTF (additive to the rest) increases our total armor by .66/5 = 13%. That 13% armor would take 30k armor to 34k. 30k armor does 64% reduction, 34k does 67% reduction. 3/37 is approximately 8% total damage reduction.
So, from 8% reduction to 20%-30% sounds like a net gain in AOE tanking, to me, even if they eliminate SotF armor entirely.
Last edited by Allev : 02/05/09 at 6:52 PM.
Reason: edit: added avoidance
Savage Defense might not be as good as block for specific situations like AE tanking a lot of mobs (which I hope will be much less pronounced in Ulduar than it is in Naxxramas, but it is also much more versatile as it will (assumption, but I think highly likely) work on spells and and also on elemental hits where armor does nothing.
--
Warrior (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)
* You now gain rage when damage done to you is absorbed, such as through a Power Word: Shield.
--
With the new Savage Defense I hope that druids get something similar to this where the damage absorbed by SD still gives us rage. Otherwise it will negatively affect us when we overgear an instance such as a normal 5man. I know it's not a huge issue but it was a constant complaint from warriors in BC and something that Blizzard acknowledged as a problem. The one hit removal regardless of damage will mediate this but I do hope that applies to actual hits and not random dot ticks.
I was wondering if anyone else would notice this, I certainly hope the savage defense shield does not reduce rage from incoming attacks. And more generally, why not let both druids and warriors get full rage from all absorb effects? (power word: shield, etc).
(Resto)
We should get very little loss in our regeneration from these changes as we were not really using the OO5SR that often at all on important encounters. Innervate will suffer to a degree that is based on the reduction on the formula and it might even make the Glyph near required to get a full return of mana from it, but we cannot really say until numbers come out.
The most annoying thing about this change is that it raises the podium on which Int stands while it lords over the ever weakening Spirit stat.
In terms of Regeneration you should end up seeing Int go from 0.57 to around 0.48-0.53~, and Spirit should go from around 0.33 to 0.18-0.23~ but that is subjective on the numbers we see come out on the PTR. MP5 becomes a slightly more valuable stat due to this change but that mostly comes down to the other two stats becoming weaker, Spirit really will suffer from this change which is sad considering it was struggling to keep up with Int at the best of times.
Yes, I too mourn spirit's fall. I wonder how, mathematically, they will perform this nerf. I expect they'll probably slap a scalar on the spirit term in the regen equation, something like:
regen = .005575*5*.8*Spirit*(Intellect)^.5)
I don't really see how else they would do it. Since they will keep the while casting regen the same while buffing Intensity, we can do this:
So the nurf scalar number will equal .3 (the old Intensity) divided by whatever % they choose for the new Intensity. Of course, this is all speculation. I'll have to check it out in the PTR to see how this will go. I don't expect spirit's MRV to drop below the .2's, though.
EDIT:
However, I am thoroughly excited that they're considering changing clearcasting procs to a burst of mana. That would actually make the darn Omen of Clarity talent modelable.
Another thing that came to mind with the change to the OoC regenaration is [Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon] will become a lot less effective. While not really required in current content, I was hoping to pair it up with another regen trinket in preparation for Ulduar in case there will be longer or more healing intensive encounters.
02/05/09, 2:58 PM
Now, I guess people will still run into starter raid instances as pugs and then joining as a guild for real content challenges. While well established guilds from pre-WotLK (or pre-BC) found this new expansion easier than expected, things now should begin to be challenging. Mobs doing a hell lot of damage, damage reduction talents and spells on all specs, mana regeneration adjusments, yeah, for me it makes sense what Blizzard is doing. We will see a decrease on our damage for Ulduar, otherwise 15k damages will be white damage. For either mobs or for any player.
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