[Prot 5.0 Beta] - Code Monkey

Wrathblood · 03/21/12, 11:34 PM

Protection Paladin 5.0 Beta Overview

It comes, and very soon, so its time to get another thread going while recognizing that massive changes are a certainty.

Significant changes from 4.3 to 5.0
- Active mitigation is moving to the fore
- Holy Power can be used for a wider range of abilities including block
- Talent trees completely re-done

Talent Trees
- MANY abilities that used to be talents will become baseline or part of a Specialization package (Prot/Holy/Ret) rather than talented-based
- Every 15 levels, Paladins of all Specs will get to chose one of three available talents. At present, these talents are:

Level 15 - Mobility
- Speed of Light - Increase run speed by 70% for 8 seconds, 1 min cd
- Long Arm of the Law - Successful Judgment increases run speed by 45% for 3 seconds
- Pursuit of Justice - Baseline +10% to runspeed, plus another 10% for each 1 HoPo

Level 30 - Stun/CC
- Fist of Justice - upgraded HoJ - 6 second stun on a 30 second cd, 20 yard range
- Repentance - 1 min cc, 30 yard range
- Burden of Guilt - successful Judgment applies a 50% snare to target for 12 seconds

Level 45 - Defensive/Heal
- Selfless Healer - each successful Judgment cuts FoL cast time by 50% and increases its effect by 50%, can stack twice
- Eternal Flame - uses all HoPo to put a HoT on target
- Sacred Shield - puts shield on target that absorbs damage and increases the chance of WoG crits on them by 30%

Level 60 - Cleanse/anti-CC
- Hand of Purity - Reduces effect of DoTs on target by 70% for 6 seconds
- Unbreakable Spirit - Can use HoPo to reduce CD on LoH, DS or DP
- Clemency - finishes CD on HoP, HoF, HoSac and HoSalv, 5 minute CD

Level 75 - Effectiveness Boost
- Holy Avenger - When GoAK is cast, next 5 abilities that use HoPo do not consume HoPo, but work as though 3 HoPo were used
- Sanctified Wrath - When Avenging Wrath is active, Judgment has no cooldown
- Divine Purpose - Every time a HoPo using ability is cast, there is a 15% chance the next HoPo using ability will not consume HoPo but will work as though it used 3 HoPo

Level 90 - Over time healing and damage
- Holy Prism - zaps single target with holy energy. If its an enemy, it takes holy damage, and 5 allies close to it are healed. If its an ally, its healed, and 5 nearby enemies are damaged. 20 second cd
- Lights Hammer - Creates Consecration-like area that heals allies and damages all enemies inside its area. 1 min cd
- Execution Sentence - If cast on enemy, inflicts a DoT that also hits hard when it ends. If cast on ally, provides a HoT that provides a big heal when it ends. 1 min cd

New Glyphs
New Glyphs are up. There are a lot of them, and until we get a better grasp of how gameplay works it will be hard to tell which ones will be the most important (though some seem like obvious no-brainers, such as the awesome Glyph of Righteous Retreat). From what we currently know, the ones that could conceivably be useful (skipping the obvious minor/cosmetic ones) for Prot are:
- Glyph of Avenging Wrath - Puts a 20 second HoT on the caster when you use Avenging Wrath
- Glyph of Blessed Life - When using Seal of Insight, taking direct damage or being Stunned, Feared or Immobilized has a 50% chance of giving you 1 HoPo. 20 second CD
- Glyph of Blinding Light - Blinding Light now knocks down targets for 3 seconds instead of Blinding them
- Glyph of Cleansing - Cleanse now removes 1 movement impairing effect. Self-only.
- Glyph of Consecration - Consecration can now be targeted up to 25 yards from caster. (OMG YES!)
- Glyph of Double Jeopardy - Judging a target increases damage of your next Judgment by 20%, but only if you use it on a different target than the first time (um, ok)
- Glyph of Focused Wrath - Holy Wrath automatically only hits one target (kind of interesting)
- Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous - Damage reduction from Hammer of the Righteous now lasts 50% longer
- Glyph of Immediate Truth - Increases damage done by Seal of Truth by 20%, but reduces Censure damage by 50%
- Glyph of Protector of the Innocent - Casting WoG on someone else heals you for 20% of the amount healed
- Glyph of Righteous Retreat - When DS is active, Hearthstone activation is 50% faster (YES!)
- Glyph of Word of Glory - Casting Word of Glory increases your damage done by 10% for 6 seconds
- Glyph of the Battle Healer - Melee attacks while using Seal of Insight heal a nearby injured ally (but not the Paladin) for a % of damage done

Disclaimer
The purpose of the Field Manual to assist you in being a better Paladin tank. The goal is to provide the best and most accurate information possible so you can make the best decisions possible. In some cases theory crafting will suggest only one solution, in other cases you will have a variety of solutions, either way it is your choice to use information from this post. If you feel you have something to contribute or correct please feel free to send me a PM or post in this thread.
important combat values.

Ronark · 03/22/12, 12:13 AM

Things that would be beneficial to post if you get into the beta:

Drop off for stats (Dodge/Parry/Mastery loss from 85 -> 86)
New combat stat rating conversions (L86-90)
Mana rotaion-- How much mana will be "in reserve" for Healing/Support abilities, how long it takes for said mana to return.
Judgement damage-- Does Judgement scale with Censure stacks anymore?
The working of our L90 talents-- Damage/heal values, area, duration

Wrathblood · 03/22/12, 9:50 AM

All great points. Additionally, anything on the exact formulas for the damage reduction % given by armor or stats converting to ratings (dodge, crit, etc) at level 90 would be fantastic.

Theck · 03/22/12, 10:18 AM

According to what we've seen, Hammer of Wrath is Ret-only. It's not going to be an extra tank cooldown.

<edit> Also, I already have my MoP Mechanics Testing thread up on maintankadin, in case anyone wants to help participate.

Wrathblood · 03/22/12, 11:00 AM

Awesome possum, Theck. I'll chip in as soon as I get into Beta and I encourage other folks to do the same.

Edit - Ah, you're right about HoW being Ret only (at this development point, anyway), so out it goes.

Saathe · 03/22/12, 11:44 AM

Some weapon enchants have also been posted. Some of note for Prot:

Survivability

Enchant Weapon - Colossus Permanently enchants a melee weapon to make your damaging melee strikes sometimes activate a Mogu protection spell, absorbing up to 7,500 damage. Requires a level 384 or higher item.
Enchant Weapon - Flowing River Permanently enchants a melee weapon to sometimes increase your dodge rating by 1,650 for 12 seconds when dealing melee damage. Requires a level 384 or higher item.

Threat

Enchant Weapon - Pandamonium Permanently enchant a melee weapon to sometimes grant 1,000 attack power for 12 seconds. Can only enchant a level 92 weapon.
Enchant Weapon - Windsong Permanently enchants a melee weapon to sometimes increase your critical strike, haste, or mastery rating by 1,500 for 12 seconds when dealing damage with spells and melee attacks. Requires a level 384 or higher item.
Enchant Weapon - Elemental Force Permanently enchants a melee weapon to sometimes inflict 3,000 additional damage when dealing damage with spells and melee attacks. Requires a level 384 or higher item.
Enchant Weapon - Dancing Steel Permanently enchants a melee weapon to sometimes increase your strength or agility by 1,650 when dealing melee damage. Your highest stat is always chosen. Requires a level 384 or higher item.

(Courtesy of WOWDB and WowInsider)

I suppose some of the threat enchants like the Proc Mastery and Proc Strength might be considered possiblities, but I'll defer to Theck's future Matlab machinations for definite say.

Theck · 03/25/12, 2:58 PM

Interesting note. Initial testing suggests that Judgment and Avenger's Shield are now spells, rather than melee abilities. I still need some data to confirm, but the level 93 dummy data I have suggests this is the case within a 99% confidence interval based on similarity to Cons behavior.

Charybdis · 03/25/12, 9:14 PM

I'm not surprised they changed AS and J to spells honestly. With the expertise and hit revamp, plus Blizzard wanting those stats to matter for tanks, changing them to spells makes the most sense. Judgment especially, since I'm still betting Blizzard will add back in the spirit > hit option for holy.

Ronark · 03/25/12, 10:49 PM

Originally Posted by Charybdis

I'm not surprised they changed AS and J to spells honestly. With the expertise and hit revamp, plus Blizzard wanting those stats to matter for tanks, changing them to spells makes the most sense. Judgment especially, since I'm still betting Blizzard will add back in the spirit > hit option for holy.

They did, but Spirit > Hit worked for both Spell and Melee.

Honestly, I don't know why they did this change. It makes sense initially (Neither can be dodged/parried, both do Spell damage, and there are no more Spell Resists). However, I can see it acting strange for specific Procs (Gurthalak) as well as specific mechanics (Silence, Spell Lockout).

EDIT: As I didn't see it listed in Theck's thread, do Prot's missed Judgements still generate Holy Power?

Theck · 03/26/12, 1:07 AM

Originally Posted by Ronark

They did, but Spirit > Hit worked for both Spell and Melee.

Honestly, I don't know why they did this change. It makes sense initially (Neither can be dodged/parried, both do Spell damage, and there are no more Spell Resists). However, I can see it acting strange for specific Procs (Gurthalak) as well as specific mechanics (Silence, Spell Lockout).

EDIT: As I didn't see it listed in Theck's thread, do Prot's missed Judgements still generate Holy Power?

No, missed Judgements do not generate HP. Log.

Ronark · 03/26/12, 1:58 AM

Originally Posted by Theck

No, missed Judgements do not generate HP. Log.

Quite interesting. I am wonder how this will play out for the other class's "resource" as well (Death Strike in particular). Echoing Charybdis, Hit and (more importantly with Judgement and AS as spells) Expertise will see an increase in value instead of taking an immediate backseat to Avoidance/Mastery.

Another thing to touch on a bit is Sanctity of Battle. Wowhead has it listed as a class passive instead of a spec passive. Any thoughts on how this might impact Prot? I still doubt that it means Protection will want haste, but the spec would see some improved Cooldown usage during Lust/TW/Hero (moreso if combined with Holy Avenger).

Charybdis · 03/26/12, 5:32 AM

Originally Posted by Ronark

Quite interesting. I am wonder how this will play out for the other class's "resource" as well (Death Strike in particular). Echoing Charybdis, Hit and (more importantly with Judgement and AS as spells) Expertise will see an increase in value instead of taking an immediate backseat to Avoidance/Mastery.

Another thing to touch on a bit is Sanctity of Battle. Wowhead has it listed as a class passive instead of a spec passive. Any thoughts on how this might impact Prot? I still doubt that it means Protection will want haste, but the spec would see some improved Cooldown usage during Lust/TW/Hero (moreso if combined with Holy Avenger).

The official talent calculator lists Sanctity of Battle as Ret only. If Wowhead is copying straight from the game though, and it's quite possible because of some of the differences I've seen, then we do have some odd possibilities for all specs.

As far as Expertise and Hit go, their value will depend on how much we care about our resources for "active mitigation" as well as threat of course. If Blizzard has its way, they'll be competitive with standard tanking stats in terms of lowering damage and such if the resources are used properly.

Theck · 03/26/12, 9:08 AM

As far as stat weights go, everything is just speculation at this point. Hit/exp will certainly have more value than they do currently, but it's anybody's guess whether they'll be "better" than mast/dodge/parry(/haste?). And it will probably depend on what metric you use (dodge/parry may give higher TDR, but hit/exp may give you more controllable, on-demand mitigation).

My sources on the beta have confirmed that we do indeed have Sanctity of Battle. I'm hesitant to put too much thought into modeling anything with it yet, though, because it's not clear whether we're keeping it. This beta build is pretty obviously just for testing the Panda starting area. It's entirely possible that some things have been only partially implemented. Once we have some sort of confirmation that it's intended for prot to have SoB, I'll incorporate it into my sims.

I have to implement it eventually anyway if I plan on modeling Ret as well, but I haven't decided whether to use the same executable for both specs or whether to build a separate Ret executable. If I do the latter, it'd be cleaner to keep SoB limited to only one file.

Sludgehamer · 04/01/12, 11:42 PM

I wanted to take a minute to discuss the change their making to block in Mop. Now how the combat table works now is that miss, dodge, parry, block, and hit are on a table. When something melee swings at you the server will roll a dice and get a number between .01 and 100. So block cap is very easy to obtain now at the moment. Now in Mop how it works is that miss, dodge, parry, and hit are on the first combat table. The second table have full hit and block. Miss, parry, and dodge work all the same and if they are rolled the server will skip the second combat table. If hit is rolled the server will look at the second table and roll again. You have a chance to block or take a full hit. Now this makes it so you would have to have 100% block to be ctc caped. Blizzard already stated that the only situation in where you will be ctc caped is where you have 2 heavy mastery procing trinkets proc at the same time. Their also adding dr to block. At the moment block gets more valuable as the more you get of it. In Mop block will have the same value all the time. Aka it won't get worse and there is a curve. They could have fixed this with just lowering the amount of block you get and stayed on one table and the same effect would have happened. I also made a video over the block change at youtube.com/watch?v=GErnu2ZENxo

What do you guys think of the change? Do you like it, or not? I personally don't like it.

Galla · 04/02/12, 2:58 AM

what about Word of Glory as finisher against magical damage - is there still a protective absorb shield for the amount of overhealing?