Mists of Pandaria: All Specs - Page 6

Nisall · 12/08/11, 9:30 AM

Originally Posted by Curulan

5 Mastery (not Mastery rating) from a single buff is still quite a bit, regardless of what Afterthought: Or did you mean that you think it's a typo for 5% increase to Mastery? If so, I'd agree with you that it makes more sense than a flat 5.

Not really, a flat 5 mastery makes more sense. Unlike the relatively small variances in crit rating -> crit % between classes each specc has a different mastery rating -> mastery %. So in terms of what each players get from it the current 5 mastery is more equal by quite a margin.

Exemplar · 12/08/11, 9:56 AM

Originally Posted by Curulan

Afterthought: Or did you mean that you think it's a typo for 5% increase to Mastery? If so, I'd agree with you that it makes more sense than a flat 5.

Why would we want to bring 5% Mastery increase? The only time 5% would beat a flat 5 bonus Mastery (not rating) is if we had more than 100 Mastery somehow.

5 Mastery scales. At Level 85 5 Mastery is 896 rating, at Level 1 5 Mastery... doesn't matter, since you cannot use it until Level 80.

5 rating does not scale - at level 1 that could be 5 Mastery, while at level 85 it would 0.03 Mastery. It would be like Crit Aura modifying (rather than increasing) your present value. Going from 10% Crit to 10.5% would be vastly less powerful than is going from 10% to 15%.

Will every raider be dying for the buff? No. Does that make it a bad buff? No. It's like complaining that Warriors or Rogues get no benefit from Curse of the Elements - a non sequitur. Every buff does not impact every class, much less impacting them for the same fashion or valuation.

Ronark · 12/08/11, 10:12 AM

Rogues do get the increased poison damage from Elements which depending On spec constitutes for a large amount of damage.

What I am curious on is the Warrior Banner of Skulls, "Increases crit chance by X% (currently 30%) for all allies in 10 yards". If a buff like this is bring implemented, would there be a possibility that only Paladins would bring the Mastery buff?

Exemplar · 12/08/11, 10:58 AM

Originally Posted by Ronark

What I am curious on is the Warrior Banner of Skulls, "Increases crit chance by X% (currently 30%) for all allies in 10 yards". If a buff like this is bring implemented, would there be a possibility that only Paladins would bring the Mastery buff?

Banner of Skulls is a CD. 3 min, lasts 15 seconds. Different animal from a standing buff such as BoM, more akin to Heroism/Bloodlust.

I like the concept, however in practice your burst phase can go pretty exponential. Imagine Hero phases turning into +Haste, Crit, Mastery, possibly others, all simultaneously. Like any other buffs, they're stronger in combination than in sequence. Add in a soupcon of annoyance aligning buffs avail every 3 min and one (effectively) only every 10 min. You'd want multiple Banner uses in a fight, but also for one to line up with the Hero.

Also tricky - if no other classes grant it then you're back to the "really want specific classes/specs" in our raids. If other classes can provide, a lack of Exhaustion-style debuff would permit chaining (unlike Hero/Time Warp) - think BC drum rotations. Organizing up-time on the buff becomes a multi-person task and potentially more annoying than fun.

Ronark · 12/08/11, 12:24 PM

Also tricky - if no other classes grant it then you're back to the "really want specific classes/specs" in our raids. If other classes can provide, a lack of Exhaustion-style debuff would permit chaining (unlike Hero/Time Warp) - think BC drum rotations. Organizing up-time on the buff becomes a multi-person task and potentially more annoying than fun.

This is what I was implying, as currently no other spec brings this Crit buff, nor other class brings the Mastery buff.

Now that I am at home and not on my mouseover-less iPhone, a couple of changes:

Class abilities-

* Seal of Truth: Now replaces Seal of Command.
* Divine Protection: Now reduces Magical damage taken by 40%, up from all damage taken by 20%.

Talents-

* Sanctified Wrath: Ret- Now removes the cooldown on Hammer of Wrath (see Ret section)

Holy-

* None, other than a rewording on GAnK.

Protection-

* Grand Crusader: Now only proced by Crusader Strike.
* Guardian of Ancient Kings: Now 3 minute cooldown, down from 5 minutes.

Retribution-

* Templar's Verdict: Now 200% weapon damage, up from 37%.
* Hammer of Wrath: Useable during Avenging Wrath, in addition to enemies under 20% health.
* Hand of Light: Hammer of Righteousness is now listed (unsure if this is just on the 30% initial hit, the "wave", or all parts).
* Guardian of Ancient Kings: No longer mentions Strength scaling in the tooltip, but still mentions Ancient Fury-- most likely just a tooltip fix.

As a note, Seals still do not indicate that they are limited to 1 active at a time.

Exemplar · 12/08/11, 12:52 PM

Originally Posted by Ronark

* Sanctified Wrath: Ret- Now removes the cooldown on Hammer of Wrath (see Ret section)
* Hammer of Wrath: Useable during Avenging Wrath, in addition to enemies under 20% health.

Note that the following is from a DPS perspective - talents may be better designed/functional for Prot and Holy.

Not to pick apart Blizzard, as creating quality DPS talents is extremely difficult and I do not claim I could do better, however these continue to be quite easy to theorycraft, regardless of what their latest interview-let states. The only things difficult to theorycraft tend to be healing related - mostly because whether X regen is better than Y throughput tends to be personal/playstyle choice.

Being able to spam just HoW during AW (or spamming it as filler between better attacks) is ridiculously easy to math and compare. I believe Malleus and I showed how simple it was to math and compare Holy Avenger and Divine Purpose. Napkin math will need to wait on realistic values of damage from all abilities, but will be a quick matter at that stage.

Additionally, Holy Avenger is down to "Next 5 abilities that use HP", which may drop it behind Divine Purpose, since our earlier napkin math figured 7 abilities used. Or it may just narrow the margin and make it a decision of RNG proc versus on demand which can be lined up with cooldowns and/or used on specific burn phases. One guess which I'd recommend.

As someone who maintains a spreadsheet, inputting the new talent setup should actually take significantly less time and effort than it did to put in Wrath or Cata talents. Then with a few clicks of Yes/No On/Off it will spit out which combination is best.

With the present design, at best we're going to go from Strict Cookie Cutter to "use Cookie Cutter A on fights 1 3 7 and 12, and Cookie Cutter B on the other fights." At worst it's still Cookie Cutter central.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing. Nor am I saying it's a good thing. I'm simply saying that claiming that theorycrafting is harder with these talents does not make it fact. Blizzard has the right to defend the new talent structure and I do not think the structure is inherently flawed or overtly bad, just please Blizzard: don't flog it as a patent nostrum that will cure all ills.

Ronark · 12/08/11, 1:14 PM

Originally Posted by Exemplar

With the present design, at best we're going to go from Strict Cookie Cutter to "use Cookie Cutter A on fights 1 3 7 and 12, and Cookie Cutter B on the other fights." At worst it's still Cookie Cutter central.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing. Nor am I saying it's a good thing. I'm simply saying that claiming that theorycrafting is harder with these talents does not make it fact. Blizzard has the right to defend the new talent structure and I do not think the structure is inherently flawed or overtly bad, just please Blizzard: don't flog it as a patent nostrum that will cure all ills.

I believe that this is, in fact, their goal. Blizzard knows that there will always be cookie cutter builds, but with this system you not only prevent "leaving out" key Spec talents (like not having Divine Storm in PvP), but you also have a slight play choice for boss encounters where making the "wrong" choice won't prevent your character from preforming their role.

Charybdis · 12/08/11, 4:32 PM

I can pretty well guarantee the Mastery buff won't be something only paladins bring. Blizz has said there will be 8 raid buffs, which means at least two specs or even classes will be bringing each buff. It further reinforces "bring the player, not the class" since there are only a handful of 10 man raid comps that can bring everything in Cataclysm.

Edit: The 8 buffs mentioned are "New raiding model that gives 8 buffs; Health, Attack Power, Spell Power, Melee Haste, Spell Haste, Crit, Mastery and Primary Stats." Source.

Curulan · 12/09/11, 12:55 AM

Originally Posted by Exemplar

Why would we want to bring 5% Mastery increase? The only time 5% would beat a flat 5 bonus Mastery (not rating) is if we had more than 100 Mastery somehow.

5 Mastery scales. At Level 85 5 Mastery is 896 rating, at Level 1 5 Mastery... doesn't matter, since you cannot use it until Level 80.

You're absolutely right; this is what happens when I post at 5AM.

Noules · 12/10/11, 6:49 PM

Originally Posted by Exemplar

Banner of Skulls is a CD. 3 min, lasts 15 seconds. Different animal from a standing buff such as BoM, more akin to Heroism/Bloodlust.

I like the concept, however in practice your burst phase can go pretty exponential. Imagine Hero phases turning into +Haste, Crit, Mastery, possibly others, all simultaneously. Like any other buffs, they're stronger in combination than in sequence. Add in a soupcon of annoyance aligning buffs avail every 3 min and one (effectively) only every 10 min. You'd want multiple Banner uses in a fight, but also for one to line up with the Hero.

Also tricky - if no other classes grant it then you're back to the "really want specific classes/specs" in our raids. If other classes can provide, a lack of Exhaustion-style debuff would permit chaining (unlike Hero/Time Warp) - think BC drum rotations. Organizing up-time on the buff becomes a multi-person task and potentially more annoying than fun.

An interesting model which mostly solve the debuff vs. specific class problem is if every dps class (or spec) brought a significant raid wide dps cooldown. If all dps brought a haste raid CD (essentially heroism) or a crit CD or whatever, the synergistic nature of the buffs will mean you'll want to bring roughly the same number of each category of CD (implicitly assuming that same type of CD don't stack, of course). At the same time, the synergistic effect tends to be a lot smaller than another actual cooldown (due to the buffs being relatively small fractions of 1), so the penalty for not having a perfectly optimal set up (like having a bunch of haste buffs and few crit buffs) is a lot smaller than actually missing one of the raid cooldowns. There would still likely be an ideal set up for absolute min-maxing, per encounter, but it would probably be a lot more forgiving, and the ideal set up would likely include a wide variety of classes.

This sort of model might also allow Blizzard another way to maybe mitigate some of the problem of melee friendly/unfriendly encounters. For example, casters might get their version of raid CD as a debuff applied to a single target (usually where melee shines), while melee versions are applied to the raid (so equally useful on adds/switching off fights, where range usually benefit).

Distinguishing dps cooldowns with survivability/healing CDs (which might be the same class of CD) would probably also help avoiding the heroism problem.

NoGoal · 12/19/11, 5:10 AM

Originally Posted by Ronark

As a note, Seals still do not indicate that they are limited to 1 active at a time.

I've been thinking about this and with the removal of auras and duration on seals, it seems very likely that seals will be like warrior stances. Stances don't have such mention either.

There are 2 counterarguments though. First, they still cost a good amount of mana (but druid forms also cost mana and DK presences consume runic power) and, second, there's no seal that increases threat as we still have Righteous Fury. All other tanks have a threat+defense stance and a increased damage one.

Ronark · 02/15/12, 11:03 PM

3rd version of the MoP Talent calculator:

15
1. Speed of Light [Instant, 1m CD]: Increases your movement speed by 70% for 8s.
2. Long Arm of the Law: A succesful Judgment increases your movement speed by 45% for 4s.
3. Pursuit of Justice: You gain 10% movement speed at all times, and an additional 10% movement speed for each current charge of HoPo.

30
1. Fist of Justice [Instant, 30s CD]: Stuns the target for 6s.
2. Repentance [1.5s]: Repentance.
3. Burden of Guilt: A successful Judgements snares the target to 50% movement speed for 12 seconds.

45
1. Selfless Healer: Your successful Judgements reduce the cast time of your next FoL by 50% and improve its effectiveness by 50% when used to heal others. Stacks up to 2 times.
2. Eternal Flame [1-3 Holy Power]: Places a HoT on a friendly target for 30 sec. Limit of 1.
3. Sacred Shield [3 Holy Power]: Increases your WoG crit chance on the target by 30%. Every 6 sec, absorbs damage. Lasts 30s. Limit of 1.

60
1. Hand of Purity [1 min CD]: Reduces Periodic damage by 70% for 6 sec.
2. Unbreakable Spirit: Each Holy Power spent reduces the remaining CD on LoH, DP, and DShield by 1%, up to a maximum of 50%.
3. Clemency [5 min CD]: Resets the cooldown on all Hand spells.

75
1. Holy Avenger: When you use GoAK, your next 5 abilities consume no Holy Power and cast as if 3 were consumed. Lasts the duration of GoAK.
2. Sanctified Wrath: When you cast AW, your HS has no CD (Holy), your Judgement has no CD (Prot), your HoW has no CD (Ret).
3. Divine Purpose: Abilities that cost Holy Power have a 15% chance to consume no Holy Power and cast as if 3 were consumed.

90
1. Holy Prisim [Instant, 20s CD]: If cast on an enemy, deals instant Holy damage and heals 5 targets within 10 yards. If cast on an ally, deals instant healing and damages 5 targets within 10 yards. Unknown duration.
2. Light's Hammer [Instant, 1 min CD]: Deals damage in a 10 yard area to all enemies every 2 sec and heals all allies in 10 yards every 2 sec. Last 15 sec.
3. Execution Sentence/Stay of Execution [Instant, 1 min CD]: If cast on an enemy, deals gradual Holy damage then burst Holy damage after 10 sec. If cast on an ally, heals gradually then burst healing after 10 sec.

Personal opinions in general:

Some abilities were really needed. One new ability at L85 increases our maximum Holy Power pool to 5, but abilities still only use up to 3 Holy Power. This helps greatly for not wasting Holy Power, as well as burst damage/healing/threat/banked Holy Power. L60 and L90 talents offer unique abilities that could be more or less powerful on a per-boss basis. L45 talents offer different ways of survivability for all 3 specs. Blinding Light still seems weak for PvE applications, but could be useful in specific fights (Ragnaros, Maloriak, etc). Hand of Salvation is also outdated.

On Ret:
It will be interesting to see how the Mana regen works out, seeing as how Sword of Light will be our only source of mana (currently 5% mana per 2 sec). Supplication is in a weird spot as a Ret-only passive, and could see weird results when combined with Selfless Healer-- Which also has a high mana cost (32%). The loss of Consecration is offset by HotR. Exorcism can now be fired off the bat along with Judgement for quick Holy Power at range. The CD reduction and Holy Power granting ability of HoW will make it feel like an execution ability again.

Exemplar · 02/16/12, 10:01 AM

Still disappointed an entire Talent Tier is dedicated to movement abilities. I continue to say that if we need a Talent for our movement to be balanced with other classes, then we have a core mechanical problem that should be solved, not band-aided. The Talent Tier isn't just sigh-worthy, it brings the anti-awesome.

Ret perspective
Interesting to have separate Single-Target and AOE melee HP Generators (CS vs HotR) and separate Singe-Target and AOE melee HP sinks (TV vs DS). Means you can be fully Single-Target or fully AOE, rather than unevenly distributed. Only sad thing is DS losing its distinctive heal causes it to feel a bit more bland.

CS, Judge, and HoW all reduced by Sanctity of Battle almost inclines towards a Rogues-in-Plate feeling. It specifically reduces GCD as well as overall CD of 3 core abilities (all which generate HP). On the plus side, with HP flowing like a waterfall, every 4th ability should be a finisher. This should mean the finisher doesn't have to be a huge hit to make up for infrequency. In short, more and smaller finishers help with PvP balance and thus reduce the potential of a PvE nerf caused by a PvP necessary change.

Considering the above pushes us pretty much into the GCD-is-our-resource (Hello, WotLK!), Mana Regen will definitely need something. GCD locked and net-mana-negative would be horribly painful - this is unlikely to be final form. Sticking strictly to CS (CD easily dropped under 4 seconds) and mana-free Finisher would slowly drive you to OOM (lose 11% every 4 seconds and gain 5% every 2 = net loss 1% every 4 sec). Add in Judgement or HoW, heaven forbid some Rebukes or spot heals, and OOM rushes forward like a brick wall.

Unbreakable Spirit looks useful for PvE and PvP. Divine Protection at 40% magic reduction has been very useful throughout Cataclysm, having its CD reduced by your normal DPS rotation is pretty nice. Also useful if a fight has a gimmick where bubbling multiple times is useful (standing beside Elementium Bolt landing zone), or if you can throw a helpful LoH during the fight. Means that tier is no longer exclusively PvP. In general the "that's cool" type of talent we've been told is the point.

Sanctified Wrath becomes dirt simple to math (once values are finalized). Either must-have or must-skip. Although I do wonder about a PvP Haste build where the Ret pops AW and throws 20 1-sec HoW in a row.
Divine Purpose is somewhat buffed with the extra 2 HP in our pool. It means you could afford to hold the proc and use a HP-generator for a GCD, or even two, to maximize efficiency.
However, with GoAK going to 3 min CD, Holy Avenger still seems to pull ahead and as an on-demand choice rather than RNG (DivPurp) becomes even more useful.

L90 talents look neat, although it leans heavily toward fight-oriented choice: AOE (Light's Hammer) or Single-Target (Execution Sentence). Somewhat annoying it it proves to be the case and Ret swap spec between every boss. LH seems the obvious tank choice (on-demand AOE threat tool) and Prism the Holy (especially Holy-PvP) tool.

Overall Assessment
Getting better, still not as awesome as Druid (that design team pulled out all the stops). First tier still 'a humiliating kick in the crotch'. Some tiers are hard choice for one spec and blah to the other two. Still needs tweaks so all 3 specs have to angst over choices on a few tiers.

P.S. Dear Blizzard. Everything remains ridiculously easy to theorycraft and number crunch, we're just waiting on the finished numbers to do so (and understand these will be some time coming). This is not a problem or failure, just please don't claim (again) that this setup will be pure personal choice and un-theorycraft-able.

Jasteus · 02/16/12, 10:57 PM

Kaivax Community Manager
#814 02/16/2012 1:42pm EST
There are some incorrect mana costs displayed in the talent calculator for some Protection and Retribution Paladins spells right now. For example, Consecration actually costs 7% of base mana, not 22%.*

They currently are designed such that they are mana positive while doing their damage and going through their tanking rotations, and stay near full mana the whole time. Mana should not be a consideration to their rotation, rather, it will act as a limit on how much off-healing and other utility spells they can cast.

*At the moment; subject to change.

*edited to include link*
February 15 Update to Mists Talent Calculator - Forums - World of Warcraft

Ronark · 03/05/12, 1:18 AM

Slight bit of number crunching.

Assume that the Pre-MoP patch went live Today. Also assume that the formula for Haste affecting CS is consistent across all abilities now affected by SoBattle. With 5.00% Haste and latency of 60 ms, we'd see the following GCDs and CDs on each ability:

CS/HotR CD: 4.50/1.05/(X-0.06)-1 = 0.05
4.2857 = (X-0.06) * 1.05
4.0816 = X-0.06
X = 4.1416 seconds

Judge/HoW CD: 6/1.05/(X-0.06)-1 = 0.05
5.7142 = (X-0.06) * 1.05
5.4421 = X-0.06
X = 5.5022 seconds

Reduced GCD: 1.5/1.05/(X-0.06)-1 = 0.05
1.4285 = (X-0.06) * 1.05
1.3605 = X-0.06
X = 1.4205 GCD

Now Lets assume during Hero/Lust/TW:

CS/HotR: 3.1997 sec
Judge/HoW: 4.2462 sec
GCD: 1.1066 GCD

Thoughts/corrections in my calculations, post below.

Addendum: This leaves out the possibility of Crusader's Zeal, as the way it is worded in the tooltip (... to increase your attack speed..) suggests it is in the same category as Windfury, Hunting Party, etc.