[Ret 5.0 Pre-MoP] - Panda-ring to all players - Page 12

Exemplar · 08/08/12, 8:40 AM

Originally Posted by aylen86

I just don't understand the changes to Holy Avenger which makes it a no-brainer and the big nerf to our 2H-weapon damage on top. Even now HA it's vastly superior in bomb situations, because you're able to spam Divine Storm. Now you get a DS and a damage buff on top.

But it's still beta, so prepare for heavy number tuning.

Actually, it's even more crazy. Not only did HA (and DS) get a large buff, but SW was heavily nerfed. SW is driven by HoW damage. HoW received a 20% nerf, thereby SW loses 20% of its power.

HA gets ~15% buff (odd # attacks are generators that do 30% bonus, even numbers are finisher with no bonus).
SW gets 20% nerf
DP gets a 25% buff

While this could make DP more attractive, the whole on-demand vs random thing still makes it suck. It is possible that DP could now technically pull ahead of the other two (at least SW), but unless it's the clear winner (we're talking more than, say, 10-20k total extra damage across a fight) we'll want to avoid it. And if it becomes the clear winner... no-brainers are no-brainers and not exactly fun design.

I expect a lot more fluctuation. Numbers certainly need tuning (and will need tuning for weeks, no doubt). My only issue is - how accurate can you tune when you're turning so very many knobs simultaneously? Math and Science both teach to change one variable at a time for any hope at accurate results.

OP has been updated for all the new values.

Ronark · 08/08/12, 12:04 PM

The change to HA and DP could be direct results of how SW was working with our 4pc bonus; this could be to simply bring it up to that level.

As stated we'll need to wait until numbers are finalized, but for the time being we should try to solidify our rotation as best as possible (which I believe to be accurate as is except for may e reviewing AoE again.)

Cloudio · 08/09/12, 4:06 AM

I believe blizzard worries much more about pvp than pve when it comes to tuning. Nerfing HoW was something expected , specially with the availability of a talent like SW . Furthermore, I pretty much think that most of the coming glyphs are pvp related or damage reduction ones , no pve damage boost anymore .

Two questions :

1- Any new figures regarding stat weights ?

2-

Sanctity of Battle: (Retribution) Melee haste effects lower the cooldown and global cooldown of your Judgment, Crusader Strike, Hammer of the Righteous, Exorcism, and Hammer of Wrath.

Templar's Verdict A powerful weapon strike that consumes 3 charges of Holy Power to deal 280% weapon damage plus 1,918.

Divine Storm: An area attack that consumes 3 charges of Holy Power to cause 135% weapon damage as Holy damage to all enemies within 8 yards.

Does this mean that , for a single target haste > mastery ? and for multi target it is haste vs mastery ( maybe mastery > haste ) ?

Pallytos · 08/09/12, 4:08 AM

New Blue posts: relevant ret stuff below

An update for paladins: we're going to buff Word of Glory and slightly nerf Light of Dawn. We will likely nerf Bastion of Glory enough to offset this change, but need additional testing first. For now, we are not changing Ret's WoG bonus so it will be buffed for them as well.

What is the vision and role of Hammer of Wrath? Like many of my fellow Paladins in this thread we are confused as to the direction this spell is going. The spell has previously been an execute and like all the other executes in the game, it was a fun hard hitting ability when we were fortunate to get the chance to use it. My concern is with the relationship with Sanctified Wrath and it being an execute ability. Is SW causing the nerfs to this ability?

I think what you’re really asking is “Can Hammer of Wrath hit harder?” It can, but that means nerfing all of the other abilities to compensate for its damage. It’s still a good button. I’m not sure all execute abilities need to be comparable, and in fact if they are, it’s one of those things that makes classes feel really similar. We wanted to restore the warrior Execute to its original design of basically being able to kill a solo questing target.

I checked a few dps calculators, and it seems that while Seal of Truth is indeed scaling with AP, Seal of Justice isn't. It's only scaling with Base Weapon Damage. Is that intended as well?
I just checked, and both of them just scale with normalized weapon damage. Censure itself scales with AP.

The more relevant point I wanted to make though as we continue to test is that having the entire community shift from one perceived best talent to another isn't super helpful. If we fail at our balancing and one talent is the best on live then I certainly won't blame anyone for choosing that talent. (I'll cry into my coffee mug of gin, but I won't blame you.) However, during the beta testing stage, it's much more helpful if players try out every talent rather than just choosing the one that conventional wisdom or the forums or the hardcore raiders say is the best. They may very well be right, but that just limits the exposure, testing and feedback of the other talents. This isn't the time to be the best. This is the time to give us feedback while there is still time for us to react.

Balhale · 08/09/12, 4:39 AM

Judgment is doing significantly more damage than the tooltip indicates as of today's build (15952)

Testing at different ap/sp levels I found a base damage of 618.8 damage and a sp coefficient of 125.8%. Can anyone else confirm this?

Also, it's not quite a 20% nerf to SW, as another part of SW's strength is that it allows you to be GCD locked with holy power generators for it's duration which is not true outside of that cooldown or HA.

Feels like they are balancing around the t14 set bonus.

Exemplar · 08/09/12, 8:58 AM

Originally Posted by Cloudio

I believe blizzard worries much more about pvp than pve when it comes to tuning.

1- Any new figures regarding stat weights ?

2- Does this mean that , for a single target haste > mastery ? and for multi target it is haste vs mastery ( maybe mastery > haste ) ?

A valid belief and I won't knock it. My own belief is that Blizzard tunes for PvE, then goes back and 'fixes' tuning for PvP. Unsurprisingly the second tuning breaks the first. It's the downside of trying to make the One Game to Rule Them All and in the Darkness Bind Them. WoW will never be perfect for PvE or PvP simultaneously, but they've been wildly successful in making both simultaenously 'good enough' for millions of players. You have to applaud that.

1 - No. Oh, theorycrafters could spend hours/days figuring them out, but they'll be obsolete the next time Blizzard changes any of our abilities. I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't plan on putting in that time/effort for something that won't be usable.

2 - Maybe, maybe not. Stat weights could figure it out, when they're worth calculating. Also remember synergy increases the value of other secondary stats as any one stat increases.

Originally Posted by Balhale

Feels like they are balancing around the t14 set bonus.

Very much so. Which causes future issues. The next patch providing T15 would cause SW to be devalued and drive us to HA (or possibly, wincing all the way, DP), or they'd rebalance and SW would be OP while we still wear T14 before we earn our T15. It's just a mess.

Whichever CM that was will be watering their morning gin. No offense intended to Blizz, but the 'best' talents tend to get mathed out very quickly. I notice for the last month or so there hasn't been another repeat (they said it multiple times early on) of the (paraphrased) 'theorycrafters are having a hard time calculating best talents' line. I doubt that's due to my mockery in a few threads on a corner of the intarweb, but more likely because their internal folks/spreadsheets/etc were showing just how easy it was to math said best talents.

The easier solution is to change the T14 bonus, but I doubt they will do so. Their opinion seems to be that odd and not matching CD are a good thing. I can see their point - giving someone multiple CD that all match and get macroed to one button may as well have been just 1 CD/button initially. Personally I would prefer matching, yet conflicting, CD (or shared CD). Think the way old Shield Wall/Retaliation design functioned, or how you can't use certain Engineering items/buffs simultaneously with certain trinkets. If you literally cannot perform them simultaneously then it adds the feature of deciding when to use which, rather than 'as frequently as possible, only delay if you won't lose a CD in the fight and there's advantage to delaying'.

Theck · 08/09/12, 7:49 PM

Originally Posted by Balhale

Judgment is doing significantly more damage than the tooltip indicates as of today's build (15952)

Testing at different ap/sp levels I found a base damage of 618.8 damage and a sp coefficient of 125.8%. Can anyone else confirm this?

It's been doing this for at least a few months now. It's got a hidden AP scaling in addition to the SP scaling. This is evident from the wowdb tooltip.

My testing confirms the base damage of 562 (within error) and both AP and SP scaling factors: 50.8% SP + 31.8% AP, for an effective total of 114.4% SP. Note that the hidden AP coefficient was nerfed by 20% just like the SP coefficient and base damage were (AP was 39.7% before build 15952).

aylen86 · 08/10/12, 4:19 AM

In the upcoming beta build, Blizzard will change our L90 ultimates to do ~50% more damage. This might be because they are devalued for not generating Holy Power and thus degraded to mere fillers. Or to raise our dps a bit after the recent damage corrections:

Execution Sentence A hammer slowly falls from the sky, causing 30,871 48,225 Holy damage over 10 sec. Stay of Execution If used on friendly targets, the falling hammer heals the target for 26,907 healing over 10 sec. 48,225 healing over 10 sec.
Holy Prism If an enemy is the prism, they take (12,412 + 109.8% 16,136 + 142.8% of SP) Holy damage and radiate (8,374 + 74.0% 10,882 + 96.2% of SP) healing to 5 nearby allies within 15 yards. If an ally is the prism, they are healed for (11,172 + 98.8% of SP) and radiate (9,304 + 82.3% 16,136 + 142.8% of SP) and radiate (10,882 + 96.2% of SP) Holy damage to 5 nearby enemies within 15 yards.
Light's Hammer Arcing Light Deals (2,792 + 24.7% 3,630 + 32.1% of SP) Holy damage to enemies within the area and 0 healing to allies within the area every 2 sec.

Balhale · 08/11/12, 2:30 AM

Originally Posted by Theck

It's been doing this for at least a few months now. It's got a hidden AP scaling in addition to the SP scaling. This is evident from the wowdb tooltip.

My testing confirms the base damage of 562 (within error) and both AP and SP scaling factors: 50.8% SP + 31.8% AP, for an effective total of 114.4% SP. Note that the hidden AP coefficient was nerfed by 20% just like the SP coefficient and base damage were (AP was 39.7% before build 15952).

In ret spec I am very definitely seeing a coefficient total and base damage 10% higher than that. Perhaps it is benefiting from sword of light's 10% dmg increase?

@aylen

It's only a 30% increase, not 50%+. ES went from 456.6% sp to 593.6% sp, with base dmg going up 30% as well.

Does anyone have the level 90 base values for CS and TV?

aylen86 · 08/11/12, 2:38 AM

Originally Posted by Balhale

Does anyone have the level 90 base values for CS and TV?

Sure.

Crusader Strike: 130% weapon damage plus 913
Templar's Verdict: 280% weapon damage plus 685

Starfox · 08/12/12, 1:46 AM

Originally Posted by Balhale

In ret spec I am very definitely seeing a coefficient total and base damage 10% higher than that. Perhaps it is benefiting from sword of light's 10% dmg increase?

@aylen

It's only a 30% increase, not 50%+. ES went from 456.6% sp to 593.6% sp, with base dmg going up 30% as well.

Does anyone have the level 90 base values for CS and TV?

You can look those up yourself in simc, both use Normalized Weapon Damage
TV: ( NWD + 685.156 )* 2.8 = NWD*2.8 + 1918
CS: ( NWD + 702.285 )*1.3 = NWD*1.3 + 903

The ingame tooltip for TV shows will only show 280%+685, when it should show +685*2.8

← Click Here

spell_query="spell.name=crusader_strike" SimulationCraft 504-4 for World of Warcraft 5.0.4 Live (build level 15961) Name : Crusader Strike (id=35395) [Scaling Spell (6)] Class : Paladin Resource : 3% Base Mana (1800 @Level 90) Spell Level : 1 Range : 5 yards GCD : 1.5 seconds Cooldown : 4.5 seconds Attributes : ........ ........ x.x..... ........ ........ .x...... ........ ....x... : ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ : ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ : ........ ..x..... ........ ........ ........ ........ x....... ........ : ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ : ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ Effects : #1 (id=25579) : Normalized Weapon Damage (121) Base Value: 1 | Scaled Value: 702.285 (avg=0.615) #2 (id=25580) : Weapon Damage% (31) Base Value: 130 | Scaled Value: 1.3 (avg=0) #3 (id=91108) : Energize Power (30) Base Value: 1 | Scaled Value: 1 | Misc Value: holy_power Description : $?s85673[An instant strike that causes $m2% weapon damage plus $m1 and grants a charge of Holy Power.][An instant strike that causes $m2% weapon damage plus $m1.] spell_query="spell.name=templars_verdict" Name : Templar's Verdict (id=85256) [Scaling Spell (6)] Class : Retribution Paladin Resource : 3 Holy Power Spell Level : 10 Range : 5 yards GCD : 1.5 seconds Attributes : ........ ........ x.x..... ........ ....x... .x...... ........ ...x.... : ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ : ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ : ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ : ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ : ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ Effects : #1 (id=86389) : Weapon Damage% (31) Base Value: 280 | Scaled Value: 2.8 (avg=0) #2 (id=131736): Normalized Weapon Damage (121) Base Value: 1 | Scaled Value: 685.156 (avg=0.6) Description : A powerful weapon strike that consumes 3 charges of Holy Power to deal $s1% weapon damage plus $s2. Variables : $crusade1=$?s31868[${30*1.3}]?s31867[${30*1.2}]?s31866[${30*1.1}][${30}] $crusade2=$?s31868[${90*1.3}]?s31867[${90*1.2}]?s31866[${90*1.1}][${90}] $crusade3=$?s31868[${235*1.3}]?s31867[${235*1.2}]?s31866[${235*1.1}][${235}] $templar1=$?s63220[${$<crusade1>*1.15}][${$<crusade1>}] $templar2=$?s63220[${$<crusade2>*1.15}][${$<crusade2>}] $templar3=$?s63220[${$<crusade3>*1.15}][${$<crusade3>}]

Balhale · 08/13/12, 2:38 AM

I think the ret module in SimC is mostly bug free at this point. If anyone is willing to play around with the action list I've got up right now or attempt to come up with something better that would be much appreciated.

All the t75 talents are implemented as are Execution Sentence and Holy Prism.

My testing puts Divine Purpose > Holy Avenger = Sanctified Wrath in BiS gear. Execution Sentence hammers holy prism at all gear levels - we have just too few open GCDs to fit 3 Holy Prisms per minute in and ES has great DPET.

I'm finding prioritizing Hammer over Exo to be a gain as well, since it hits for slightly less discounting mastery but is then bumped up over Exo because of the mastery and its shorter cd.

The 90 talent values in the first post need to be updated - the wowhead tooltips are accurate so data can be lifted from them.

Starfox · 08/13/12, 3:59 AM

Originally Posted by Balhale

I think the ret module in SimC is mostly bug free at this point. If anyone is willing to play around with the action list I've got up right now or attempt to come up with something better that would be much appreciated.

All the t75 talents are implemented as are Execution Sentence and Holy Prism.

My testing puts Divine Purpose > Holy Avenger = Sanctified Wrath in BiS gear. Execution Sentence hammers holy prism at all gear levels - we have just too few open GCDs to fit 3 Holy Prisms per minute in and ES has great DPET.

I'm finding prioritizing Hammer over Exo to be a gain as well, since it hits for slightly less discounting mastery but is then bumped up over Exo because of the mastery and its shorter cd.

The 90 talent values in the first post need to be updated - the wowhead tooltips are accurate so data can be lifted from them.

Can you post some light's hammer numbers, 3267.16 - 3993.2 + 32.1% * SP should it be.
The spell data for this talent is scattered across 4 spells.
It has a 17.5s duration, 2s tick time.
Does it take the hammer 1.5s to land, the spell data seems to indicate that "for ${$122773d-1.5} sec.", that leaves me with 16s of damage time.
Does it immediately tick on landing?

time	case 1	case 2
0	cast	cast
1.5	tick#1	nothing
3.5	tick#2	tick#1
5.5	tick#3	tick#2
7.5	tick#4	tick#3
9.5	tick#5	tick#4
11.5	tick#6	tick#5
13.5	tick#7	tick#6
15.5	tick#8	tick#7
17.5	tick#9	tick#8

I implemented "case 1", do the ticks dynamically adopt to changes in ap/sp? Or does it snapshot the values during the cast (that's how it's in simcraft atm)

Exemplar · 08/13/12, 9:28 AM

Originally Posted by Balhale

My testing puts Divine Purpose > Holy Avenger = Sanctified Wrath in BiS gear.

The 90 talent values in the first post need to be updated - the wowhead tooltips are accurate so data can be lifted from them.

OP updated - I don't read forums on weekends. Please be patient. ES has an ugly tooltip.

Regarding DP > HA/SW, are you configuring to link cooldowns and manage Inq intelligently (using HA with AW when possible)? While it's certainly possible that DP is now uniformly ahead (that was a big buff it received), it feels wrong to my gut (wrong doesn't mean untrue) compared to on-demand burst linked with CDs. I know in the past the Simcraft default has pretty much been set up to utilize cooldowns, trinkets, etc when available (only referencing their own remaining CD timers). Again, in the past, I've managed to get noticeably better total damage from a Sim by altering the conditions to more closely match actual gameplay. More intelligent use of AW, Zealotry, GoAK, and Trinkets made large increases in DPS, somewhere on the order of 3-5%. By logical analysis I was able to determine that some CD(s) would have been used when you had zero HP or Inq was at 5 sec remaining, meaning part/all of a CD was 'wasted' due to poor timing. Example - first AW and Zealotry was linked, but second AW would occur when HP is less than 3, so Zealotry would engage a good 5-10 seconds later, thus throwing them off the entire rest of the sim length.

I'm guessing HA = SW only because 4 piece tier bonus. Without tier bonus they were roughly equivalent prior to HA getting a large buff and SW a large nerf (via HoW reduction) - the only way I could explain their equivalency in BiS would be the AW CD reduction. This would simply confirm that SW will have an issue during the following tier. Also if you're complaining about free GCD for ES/HP/LH, then SW sounds like it would have a GCD issue on top of the fact that it may lose some oomph if HoW is relatively low in priority (entirely possible).

Originally Posted by Starfox

Do the ticks dynamically adopt to changes in ap/sp? Or does it snapshot the values during the cast (that's how it's in simcraft atm)

Balhale posted the tick scaling here. Values have likely changed as the talents have been buffed since that post, but the '% of total' column has a high likelihood of continued validity.

Don't expect dynamic tick update on ES. Your snapshot model should be valid. Blizzard has stated they focus on spells which could roll forever for dynamic update (to prevent the 'pop huge trinket/CD/raid-CD and then roll entire fight' scenarios).

Starfox · 08/13/12, 11:03 AM

Originally Posted by Exemplar

Balhale posted the tick scaling here. Values have likely changed as the talents have been buffed since that post, but the '% of total' column has a high likelihood of continued validity.

Don't expect dynamic tick update on ES. Your snapshot model should be valid. Blizzard has stated they focus on spells which could roll forever for dynamic update (to prevent the 'pop huge trinket/CD/raid-CD and then roll entire fight' scenarios).

Execution Sentece was easy to figure out, but I was asking about Light's Hammer.
I currently snapshot the AP/SP value when you cast it and it stays at that value for all of the ticks. 9 ticks per cast.