[Prot] 5.0 - I'm Sexy and I Know it - Page 11

Wrathblood · 01/10/13, 3:40 PM

I'd wait until we get closer to live before jumping to any assumptions.

Also, I did the above math wrong, its more like 22k Mastery to reach block cap and I think that'll be reachable with heroic gear in the next tier. It'd drop your ShoR uptime roughly in half, but holy moly would it be worth it. 30% reduction in all incoming blockable damage would be absurdly powerful, elevating prot pallies well above any other tank. But that's how it stands now. Lets wait a few iterations and see where they go with it.

Periad · 01/11/13, 7:09 AM

If you're going to make assumptions on a mechanic you should look at past experience to base the assumption on. Our 4 piece T14 bonus provides a 10% bonus to the damage reduction of ShoR which is multiplicative and not additive.

Wrathblood · 01/11/13, 3:42 PM

Certainly it could go either way. As I said, lets wait a few iterations and see where they go with it.

Balhale · 01/11/13, 6:06 PM

The "increases by an additional 40%" sounds additive to me. Contrast with the current 4pc which just says increases by 10%.

anafielle · 01/11/13, 6:19 PM

It's additive. And they aren't going to let us block cap. Clarified by GC this afternoon:

- The Protection 2pc is additive. It's duration is 5sec per Holy Power. We realize there are concerns about this enabling block capping, and are keeping an eye on this, and will adjust if necessary to make sure it doesn’t happen, even later in the expansion.
- The Protection 4pc does incentivize Unbreakable Spirit. We’re considering possible revisions but want to try it like this for now. It's currently "You gain 1 Holy Power for each 20% of your health taken as damage while Divine Protection is active."

PTR Class and Set Bonus Issues - Forums - World of Warcraft

Charybdis · 01/11/13, 6:20 PM

GC has confirmed it's additive at PTR Class and Set Bonus Issues - Forums - World of Warcraft. Likewise, they're expressing concern it might lead to block capping and will be taking appropriate steps to make sure that doesn't happen later on.

They've also noticed that the 4p gives an incentive to use Unbreakable Spirit, but "want to try it like this for now."

Lastly, they clarified that the 4p is currently 1 HoPo per 20% health during DP.

Theck · 01/14/13, 8:32 AM

Originally Posted by Wrathblood

I'd wait until we get closer to live before jumping to any assumptions.

Also, I did the above math wrong, its more like 22k Mastery to reach block cap and I think that'll be reachable with heroic gear in the next tier. It'd drop your ShoR uptime roughly in half, but holy moly would it be worth it. 30% reduction in all incoming blockable damage would be absurdly powerful, elevating prot pallies well above any other tank. But that's how it stands now. Lets wait a few iterations and see where they go with it.

I think there's an error in your calculation. 22k mastery gives you about 36.6%. Even in the absence of diminishing returns, that would leave us shy of the 104.5% needed to block cap (36.6+8+13+40=97.6%). But of course, we need to include DR, which dramatically raises the requirement.

Assuming the ideal case, which is that the 40% block is not subject to DR, we need 104.5-13-40=51.5% block from mastery after diminishing returns. Before DR, that's 69.39%. We get 8% of that for free, but it still requires 61.39% from mastery rating, which is 36834 rating.

Even at 22k we wouldn't be reaching block cap this expansion. We only have about 18-19k rating total in full heroic gear right now. We may have over 22k rating by T15H even, but we won't have the freedom to allocate it all into mastery (especially while maintaining a reasonable amount of hit/exp). We'd generally need over twice that amount of rating from gear before we'd even get close, and I don't see us reaching levels of 50k+ rating this expansion.

TLDR: We're not reaching block cap any time soon.

Wrathblood · 01/14/13, 9:27 AM

Yeah, the 22k was wrong as well. (I had a few days in there where my math was just wildly wrong on everything ("The kids can have two Popsicles each. So, we need to buy 6. Wait, how many kids do we have... 2? Hmm. Something doesn't seem right.") Too much cold medicine, perhaps) but I don't think its *that* far off.

I think you're shooting high, but I'm not exactly following all your numbers. 104.5%? Is that including for DR? Shouldn't the raw target be 100.8%? Parry/dodge/miss being suppressed wouldn't be an issue. Also, are you including buffs? Is that the free 8% you mention? BoM + Monk's Elixir + whatever food that is that gives +200 Mastery gives you another 3950 Mastery (more for an Alchemist). Plus, forget Hit and Exp. You'd need an astronomically bad run of luck to not generate 3 HoPo every 15 seconds even with 0% of each, and while losing a good chunk of HoPo generation would be painful, I'd argue that's a trivial loss if Block Capping is any way reachable.

Edit - So, lets see. Without DR, 100.8 - 40 - 13 = 47.8% Mastery needed to cap. Which is 28680. Take out the 3950 you get from buffs and we're at 24730 needed to cap. With my poor recent track record I'm not going to take a stab at it with DR but clearly it would be higher.

Vehlin · 01/14/13, 10:52 AM

I don't think you can discount the need to have hit/exp even were it possible to block cap. Block cap would give us a flat 30% reduction against unavoided physical hits, but would do nothing for non-physical damage while at the same time reducing HoPo generation and thus SotR uptime.

Theck · 01/14/13, 1:07 PM

Originally Posted by Wrathblood

Yeah, the 22k was wrong as well. (I had a few days in there where my math was just wildly wrong on everything ("The kids can have two Popsicles each. So, we need to buy 6. Wait, how many kids do we have... 2? Hmm. Something doesn't seem right.") Too much cold medicine, perhaps) but I don't think its *that* far off.

I think you're shooting high, but I'm not exactly following all your numbers. 104.5%? Is that including for DR? Shouldn't the raw target be 100.8%? Parry/dodge/miss being suppressed wouldn't be an issue. Also, are you including buffs? Is that the free 8% you mention? BoM + Monk's Elixir + whatever food that is that gives +200 Mastery gives you another 3950 Mastery (more for an Alchemist). Plus, forget Hit and Exp. You'd need an astronomically bad run of luck to not generate 3 HoPo every 15 seconds even with 0% of each, and while losing a good chunk of HoPo generation would be painful, I'd argue that's a trivial loss if Block Capping is any way reachable.

Edit - So, lets see. Without DR, 100.8 - 40 - 13 = 47.8% Mastery needed to cap. Which is 28680. Take out the 3950 you get from buffs and we're at 24730 needed to cap. With my poor recent track record I'm not going to take a stab at it with DR but clearly it would be higher.

104.5% is how much block you need to cover the combat table. Remember that Mists increased the level-based reduction in miss, dodge, parry, and block to 1.5% per level. So a level 93 boss gives you -4.5% miss, -4.5% parry, -4.5% dodge, and -4.5% block. Since block is on a second roll, we need 104.5% to achieve 100% block.

13% of that is guaranteed from base block and spec (3% base, 10% spec, neither are subject to DR). I've obviously also assumed that the 40% from the set bonus is not subject to DR. Everything else should be though. That leaves 51.5% block that we need to make up from sources that are subject to DR. That's equivalent to 69.39% block before DR is applied, and I'm assuming it all comes from mastery.

The "free" 8% is the 8% mastery you get baseline at level 80 when you learn your mastery skill. The other 61.39% has to come from mastery rating. 61.39% mastery is 36834 rating from all sources. If you want to account for BoM, elixir, and food, subtract your 3950 from that to get 32884 rating from gear and enchants.

Even if you ignore hit and expertise, you're not going to make that value. As I said, in ilvl 496 gear (including enchants) we have around 18k rating (a little less, actually, but let's be generous). But it can't all be mastery. Even in the ideal case where every item has mastery natively, only a little over half of that will be mastery (can't reforge for it, but can gem/enchant). So we might get ~10k-11k mastery at ilvl 496 if we gem and enchant for it all-out. I don't see us tripling our rating allocation by the end of Mists, which is what it would take to reliably block cap.

If you want to fool around with the numbers yourself, save a copy of my Tankadin Stats Sheet and tweak the numbers. It takes care of the DR for you. I've set it up so that you can add arbitrary amounts of pre-DR block chance in cell D16, and block cap with the set bonus active at all times would be 64.5% on the character sheet (cell G16). What you need to make up for via mastery will be the pre-DR total (E16) minus 8 for the amount granted by spec.

Theck · 01/14/13, 1:21 PM

Originally Posted by Vehlin

I don't think you can discount the need to have hit/exp even were it possible to block cap. Block cap would give us a flat 30% reduction against unavoided physical hits, but would do nothing for non-physical damage while at the same time reducing HoPo generation and thus SotR uptime.

The thought is that you're trading ~10% of SotR uptime (via hit/exp, dropping from ~40% to ~30% uptime) for 100% uptime on a guaranteed 30% mitigation that is multiplicative (i.e. you can mitigate a blocked attack with SotR). I don't think there's any question that doing so would be worth it in terms of TDR and smoothness metrics if it were possible, which is the concern GC is certainly addressing. Don't forget that dropping hit/exp for mastery isn't a total loss in the SotR department either - if you get 51.5% block from mastery, it means that your SotR is mitigating 81.5% too. You gain back some of what you lose in uptime and consistency by being "melee immune" at will for 3 seconds out of every ~10 or so.

That said, the numbers just don't work that way. There's no feasible way we can get block-capped this expansion even with 40% more block.

The question we will want to answer is whether it's worth maintaining the buff with WoG at the expense of SotR uptime, even though that buff doesn't block-cap us. My guess is that the answer will be no for both TDR and smoothness metrics. But of course, I'll be running simulations once I have time so we have accurate answers.

It seems to me that this is intended to be a small mitigation bonus for times when we have to use WoG, since that necessarily costs us SotR uptime. Intent is always tricky to guess, of course, but I don't think they meant it to be a maintenance buff. If it turns out to be optimal to do that, they may nerf or modify the bonus.

Wrathblood · 01/14/13, 5:20 PM

Originally Posted by Theck

104.5% is how much block you need to cover the combat table. Remember that Mists increased the level-based reduction in miss, dodge, parry, and block to 1.5% per level. So a level 93 boss gives you -4.5% miss, -4.5% parry, -4.5% dodge, and -4.5% block. Since block is on a second roll, we need 104.5% to achieve 100% block.

13% of that is guaranteed from base block and spec (3% base, 10% spec, neither are subject to DR). I've obviously also assumed that the 40% from the set bonus is not subject to DR. Everything else should be though. That leaves 51.5% block that we need to make up from sources that are subject to DR. That's equivalent to 69.39% block before DR is applied, and I'm assuming it all comes from mastery.

The "free" 8% is the 8% mastery you get baseline at level 80 when you learn your mastery skill. The other 61.39% has to come from mastery rating. 61.39% mastery is 36834 rating from all sources. If you want to account for BoM, elixir, and food, subtract your 3950 from that to get 32884 rating from gear and enchants.

Even if you ignore hit and expertise, you're not going to make that value. As I said, in ilvl 496 gear (including enchants) we have around 18k rating (a little less, actually, but let's be generous). But it can't all be mastery. Even in the ideal case where every item has mastery natively, only a little over half of that will be mastery (can't reforge for it, but can gem/enchant). So we might get ~10k-11k mastery at ilvl 496 if we gem and enchant for it all-out. I don't see us tripling our rating allocation by the end of Mists, which is what it would take to reliably block cap.

If you want to fool around with the numbers yourself, save a copy of my Tankadin Stats Sheet and tweak the numbers. It takes care of the DR for you. I've set it up so that you can add arbitrary amounts of pre-DR block chance in cell D16, and block cap with the set bonus active at all times would be 64.5% on the character sheet (cell G16). What you need to make up for via mastery will be the pre-DR total (E16) minus 8 for the amount granted by spec.

Oh, I hadn't realized all the level-based reductions were increased so dramatically. Not sure how I missed that. I'll have to adjust some things. That by itself would make reaching block-cap questionable this expansion (I figured just about 11k was doable in heroic gear this tier). Taking on an additional ~18% from DR makes it, I agree, unachievable in this expansion regardless of things like whether they continue allowing gear upgrades, etc. We simply won't have access to enough itemization points.

The interesting question is going to be Haste vs Mastery. With Mastery you'll have longer windows during which ShoR is down, but that will be covered, to some degree, by significantly improved block. Improving your block chance from 65% to 75% is *MUCH* more valuable than increasing it from 30% to ~42% even though they take roughly comparable itemization points, which will make Mastery more attractive. Obviously you'd lose some dps by shifting away from Haste, but there's surely value in improving the mitigation of ShoR itself along with bigger WoGs. My gut is telling me Mastery is going to win this, but there are numbers still to be crunched, fight mechanics to be looked at, and I don't doubt they'll fiddle with things on the PTR.

Capping Hit and Exp will remain paramount, however, as long as they don't do anything to bring block capping back to the table.

Theck · 01/15/13, 10:16 AM

It will really depend on how the simulations come out. Using WoG to maintain the 2pc buff is probably going to be a net gain in TDR but a net loss in smoothness. The extra 40% block will almost guarantee that you block at least 3-4 attacks during that 15 seconds, which is a total of 90%-120% of a single boss attack. SotR will guarantee 2 of them for ~40-45%, giving 80-90% of a single boss attack. That should clearly give WoG the edge in TDR, but since you can't control when those blocks happen, you still leave yourself open to strings of unblocked attacks. Especially when you consider the 3-4 seconds of downtime you have between your last SotR dropping off and the WoG buff being applied.

I actually hope they tweak/nerf it somewhat such that maintaining the 2-piece buff isn't optimal, if the numbers do come out that way. From a gameplay enjoyment standpoint, we really don't need another maintenance buff. We already have Sacred Shield and Weakened Blows, and the 4-piece will encourage more proactive use of Divine Protection as well.

Bemxuu · 01/15/13, 8:35 PM

Originally Posted by Theck

Even if you ignore hit and expertise, you're not going to make that value. As I said, in ilvl 496 gear (including enchants) we have around 18k rating (a little less, actually, but let's be generous). But it can't all be mastery. Even in the ideal case where every item has mastery natively, only a little over half of that will be mastery (can't reforge for it, but can gem/enchant). So we might get ~10k-11k mastery at ilvl 496 if we gem and enchant for it all-out. I don't see us tripling our rating allocation by the end of Mists, which is what it would take to reliably block cap.

A little bit higher than that, actually. I took a look at wowhead and what it has to offer and it seems like we can get to 13k before profession perks and upgrades (with everything put into mastery, ignoring socket bonuses - all of it). Doesn't change much, though.
Edit: disregard that. Didn't pay attention to 496 part of the message.

However, there are trinkets that give us a temporary boost in Mastery. If I'm not horribly mistaken here, one could carry two and use them back to back. That's 50% uptime ~3600 active boost in mastery vs ~2500 passive (medallion can be reforged to mastery as well, I think). I believe temporary block cap also counts with all the frequent tank swaps and stuff.

Anyway, it's been stated that "The Protection 4pc counts damage after all mitigation, and does count absorbed damage.", which makes me ask for clarifications: AD is an absorption effect, right? Will using both together hurt 4T15 HoPo generation?

Bemxuu · 01/16/13, 8:29 PM

And yet another question: why not use 1HoPo WoG to proc the bonus?