Protection and you! - Page 163

pope master · 10/13/08, 8:35 PM

Originally Posted by Usul

Ok, so going with that I can assume you mean that Seal of Corruption is better because, if used with the glyph, it grants expertise. Are you then also stating that SoC causes more threat because of the extra 10 expertise? Is that just a best guess or is that just an assumption, because I'd really like to see the numbers run between SoR and SoC/V with the glyph.

Its a best guess based on the following: Expertise was proven to be if not our best, then tied with our best single-target tanking stat for TBC. As spell power has declined in importance this has only become more true.

I'm not going to run the numbers because I'd have to make too many assumptions about miss rates, spell power, strength values, etc for it to be worthwhile at this stage in the game. If you're really interested in seeing the numbers I think you should do them and post them here so we can all benefit

As far as I'm concerned its a moot point because TPS is off the charts in 3.0 anywho.

Usul · 10/13/08, 8:35 PM

Originally Posted by Balog

All seals are available to both factions, just with different names. Unless they've changed this in the last coupla days?

Well, it looks like Vengeance and Corruption are the same, but it appears that Blood and Martyr are not, unless these numbers are incorrect.

Seal of Blood
All melee attacks deal [ 28% of mw ] to [ 28% of MW ] additional Holy damage, but the Paladin loses health equal to 10% of the total damage inflicted. Lasts 2 min. Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 45% of mw ] to [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 45% of MW ] Holy damage at the cost of health equal to 33% of the damage caused.
14% of base mana, Instant cast

Seal of the Martyr
All melee attacks deal [ 28% of mw ] to [ 28% of MW ] additional Holy damage, but the Paladin loses health equal to 10% of the total damage inflicted. Lasts 2 min. Unleashing this Seal's energy will judge an enemy, instantly causing [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 25% of mw ] to [ 20% of AP + 32% of Spell Power + 25% of MW ] Holy damage at the cost of health equal to 33% of the damage caused.
14% of base mana, Instant cast

... not that we'd use Blood/martyr for tanking anyway, but I thought I would properly answer your question.

Anyway, so far facts supporting the theory that SoV/C gives more threat then SoR seem to be without actual data and are purely based on the assumption that 10 expertise gives more threat then pure damage. However, the Glyph which grants 10 expertise to SoV/C requires level 435 Inscription to craft and thus will not be available until WotLK.

So... Come patch 3.0, prior to WotLK, Horde Paladin... which is better for Threat? Seal of Righteousness or Seal of Corruption (without the glyph).

kharen · 10/13/08, 8:41 PM

The Blood/Martyr differences just showed up in the latest beta build (along with a lot of other seal-related weirdness), they've been identical most of the time (one of the devs was probably screwing around with the coefficients on one of them when they pulled the spell data for the current beta build, and hadn't replicated the change over to the other version).

Vengeance == Corruption, and Blood == Martyr. For the sake of brevity, most people just use the original names when discussing them.

Balog · 10/13/08, 9:13 PM

Originally Posted by Usul

So... Come patch 3.0, prior to WotLK, Horde Paladin... which is better for Threat? Seal of Righteousness or Seal of Corruption (without the glyph).

My understanding was that the "both factions get both seals" was part of what was being implemented in the new patch.

• frmorrison · 10/13/08, 10:30 PM

Originally Posted by Usul

So... Come patch 3.0, prior to WotLK, Horde Paladin... which is better for Threat? Seal of Righteousness or Seal of Corruption (without the glyph).

However, it seems the Glyph is learned after level 70, so it will not be ready until November.

Since threat is not an issue, just use Seal of Light for now, and then in Wrath use SoV.

Qalor · 10/14/08, 12:38 AM

Originally Posted by Usul

Ok, so going with that I can assume you mean that Seal of Corruption is better because, if used with the glyph, it grants expertise. Are you then also stating that SoC causes more threat because of the extra 10 expertise? Is that just a best guess or is that just an assumption, because I'd really like to see the numbers run between SoR and SoC/V with the glyph.

It's easy enough to do the math. I'm assuming the values posted by Cathela in the other thread are correct.
JoR scales slightly worse in both AP and SP than JoV with a 5 stack.

SoR does 2.8% ap, 5.5% sp per second.

SoV does 16% ap, 8% sp per 3 seconds with a 5 stack, and does 1.2% sp per second once you have a 5 stack

Plug some random numbers in with those coefficients and see for yourself. SoV wins when ap is = or greater than SP, certainly. As that's going to be the normal condition, it's pretty easy to see that SoV will win in threat. The only time it won't win is when you can't get a 5 stack going, or possibly directly after you've gotten to the 5 stack.

jere · 10/14/08, 8:27 AM

Originally Posted by Qalor

It's easy enough to do the math. I'm assuming the values posted by Cathela in the other thread are correct.
JoR scales slightly worse in both AP and SP than JoV with a 5 stack.

SoR does 2.8% ap, 5.5% sp per second.

SoV does 16% ap, 8% sp per 3 seconds with a 5 stack, and does 1.2% sp per second once you have a 5 stack

Plug some random numbers in with those coefficients and see for yourself. SoV wins when ap is = or greater than SP, certainly. As that's going to be the normal condition, it's pretty easy to see that SoV will win in threat. The only time it won't win is when you can't get a 5 stack going, or possibly directly after you've gotten to the 5 stack.

It's actually doing less than 1.2% dps on the 5 stack now. I haven't nailed down the value yet, but it is definitely less.

At 384 SP, I am hitting for 3-4 damage per hit (1.6 speed weapon).

I should be hitting for 0.012*1.6*384 = 7.4, so 7-8. Playing around with some gear it looks like it is now doing simply 1% of your spell dmg per hit, which would be like (0.01/weapon_speed) per second.

Also, make sure for the comparison that you are including HotR effects as each time you use HotR, you proc the seal, which means damage for SoR and both stack refresh and damage for SoV. That moves SoR a bit closer, but it still falls behind, though now the equation is based on Weapon_Speed versus AP/SP ratio. In most cases SoV will still win in single target damage (except for a few rare slow speed weapons with certain AP/SP ratio values).

Mordekhuul · 10/14/08, 10:33 AM

Folks, with 3.0.2 going live today, I wonder if the old standby rule of thumb for gemming still applies.

Namely:

Gem choices are (generally) rather simple. As with most tanks, you'll most likely want to get as much stamina as you can get your hands on. So +12 stamina (or +15 stamina if you have access to epic gems) are most of the time your best choice.

Socket bonuses are usually not worth considering, though a few exception items in which I find them worth it do exist; [Justicar Shoulderguards] being a prime example, and [Crystalforge Faceguard] being another good example.

With the significant increase in BV gained I'll probably switch to [Eternal Earthstorm Diamond], but now I am looking to gem my new [Lightbringer Chestguard] and wondering if stamina still rules for a T6 MT/OT.

I'm thinking that perhaps DR makes stam/dodge, stam/defense, or stam/parry gems even less attractive at decent gear levels now, where stacking stamina has no DR (nor stacking BV for that matter), so maybe I'm answering my own queston by saying that nothing has changed to make it more worthwhile to gem for mitigation post-patch than before.

However, I toss it out there to see if anyone has different gemming ideas now based on something I am missing.

Smurrf · 10/14/08, 10:50 AM

Gem/enchant/otherwise augment until you're def capped (remember, you're losing 20 def), then gem Stam. It makes AD a better talent, increases threat from SpellPower (albeit marginally)...and gives you stam. Nothing else, in my opinion, is worth more than that.

Janraea · 10/14/08, 10:57 AM

Originally Posted by Mordekhuul

Folks, with 3.0.2 going live today, I wonder if the old standby rule of thumb for gemming still applies.

Namely:

With the significant increase in BV gained I'll probably switch to [Eternal Earthstorm Diamond], but now I am looking to gem my new [Lightbringer Chestguard] and wondering if stamina still rules for a T6 MT/OT.

I'm thinking that perhaps DR makes stam/dodge, stam/defense, or stam/parry gems even less attractive at decent gear levels now, where stacking stamina has no DR (nor stacking BV for that matter), so maybe I'm answering my own queston by saying that nothing has changed to make it more worthwhile to gem for mitigation post-patch than before.

However, I toss it out there to see if anyone has different gemming ideas now based on something I am missing.

Well, the main new reason to gem for mitigation is that it's now realistically possible for healers to go oom. Lots of stamina helps with that, because it lets them do less overhealing to keep you up,. but I believe block value is now king again.

♦ Oggie · 10/14/08, 11:35 AM

Personally I would not bother till WotLK because ShoR isn't functional as of yet. With 30% less HP on all bosses and the removal of sunwell radiance I'm less concerned about healer mana as of yet than I am about threat (without ShoR I'm actually a little concerned about this, at 70). If survival is the biggest issue I'll change my tune, just not sure that that's going to be the biggest concern for me.

Guess we'll see!

Cathela · 10/14/08, 1:20 PM

Originally Posted by Kayoto

I'm still hoping for a buff to HotR, but considering no one else seems to think it's an issue (even though it's one of our lowest contributing abilities for threat, even below Holy Shield on some fights), I'm not holding my breath.

It's no great shakes for single-target threat, granted, but it's fantastic on multiple targets. If you're fighting 3+ targets and using SoV, then 2/3 of your SoV damage is due to HotR.

Regarding RD breaking and whether devs have noticed: I've personally never experienced an instance of RD not working properly. Many people have, and I don't doubt that you guys are having genuine problems. But I think it's possible that it just goes wrong for some people but not for others (for whatever reason). So it may be that genuinely none of the devs have ever had problems with it, even though many people genuinely have had problems with it.

Originally Posted by Rasczak

Have they said anything about giving our glyphs another pass? Compared to the warrior and deathknight glyphs a lot of ours seem pretty lackluster.

I'm think the official word is something like "We'll be adding more later, but for now what you see is what you get."

And I agree; they're pretty lackluster. The thing that strikes me about the warrior glyphs isn't so much that they're more powerful than ours, it's that they're more interesting. Cooler. Many of them add new dimensions to skills and talents, like the "cleaving" effect on the Sunder Armor glyph, or the one that adds a true taunt to Mocking Blow. (We could sure use a glyph that gave us another taunt, couldn't we?) We have some interesting things along those lines, like the Exorcism glyph and the AS glyph, but ours really just don't make me go "oooh!" the way the warrior ones do. (I've decided to make my warrior alt into an inscriptor for the extra slot; that's how much I like the warrior glyphs.)

Avenger's Shield: Well, you can de-equip glyphs at will, you just need to be at an inscription trainer to equip them. So if you wanted to use the AS glyph for say, Brutallus and then drop it for Felmyst you could do that and just be one glyph short for the rest of the raid.

Avenging Wrath: This isn't going to help much for tanking since you really can't even use HoW every 6 seconds in a normal 6/9 rotation, much less every 3 seconds.

Consecration: Yeah, it blows your rotation. The only possible use I could see would be if you wanted to alternate Cons/Exo on a demon/undead target (so you'd only be cons'ing every 18 seconds anyway).

Glyph of Avenger's Shield is a good one for bosses but hurts getting initial agro on multiple mobs, historically one of our strengths. If it was something you could click on and off at will it would be fantastic.

Exorcism: They won't let us use this on non-demon/undead targets. We can debate back and forth about whether paladins should get a general-purpose spell interrupt, but one thing that's for certain is that if the devs decide to give us a real interrupt, they won't do it with a glyph. (Someone said in the Benefactor's Bar thread that the devs have two answers for these kinds of questions: "No" and "We're looking into it", which means "no".)

Vengeance will definitely be the premier tanking glyph.

For minor glyphs, Sense Undead is a no-brainer but after that, it's basically just personal taste. I don't mind that they're relatively un-powerful, I just wish they were more interesting. (And damn, I can't believe they took away Warhorse.)

Originally Posted by Kayoto

Eyonix is the red-headed stepchild of the blue posters. He doesn't count, especially if he's responsible for such terrible things as [Blue's Greaves of the Righteous Guardian] and [Shattrath Protectorate's Breastplate].

I really doubt it. There's been a consistent pattern all through BC of the itemization team being one step behind the dev team as far as class mechanics go (see mp5 on our original T4 gear and for that matter still on the T3.5 blue set) so there doesn't really need to be a special reason for spellhit to appear on prot paladin gear.

I think Eyonix's comment about spellhit was just him not understanding all the details of our tanking mechanics. (He's not a dev; he's just a dude who works for Blizzard and plays WoW in his free time, so he's not necessarily going to know all the ins and outs of the game.)

Originally Posted by Usul

Well, it looks like Vengeance and Corruption are the same, but it appears that Blood and Martyr are not, unless these numbers are incorrect.

Come on. What do you think?

Originally Posted by jere

It's actually doing less than 1.2% dps on the 5 stack now. I haven't nailed down the value yet, but it is definitely less.

At 384 SP, I am hitting for 3-4 damage per hit (1.6 speed weapon).

I should be hitting for 0.012*1.6*384 = 7.4, so 7-8. Playing around with some gear it looks like it is now doing simply 1% of your spell dmg per hit, which would be like (0.01/weapon_speed) per second.

That means SoV actually favors fast weapons very slightly.

Originally Posted by Mordekhuul

With the significant increase in BV gained I'll probably switch to [Eternal Earthstorm Diamond]

That's been nerfed to +5% block value (to match the WotLK equivalent gem) so keep that in mind as you make your decisions.

Overall I'm basically with Oggie on re-gemming/re-enchanting questions. Aside from really obvious cases (e.g., switching from a spellpower weapon to a tanking weapon) it's probably best just to wait until you see how well your current gear does with the new mechanics before making changes.

jere · 10/14/08, 1:28 PM

Originally Posted by Cathela

That means SoV actually favors fast weapons very slightly.

Well bear in mind, it is pretty hard to nail down as is. With such small numbers (3, 4, 5, 6, etc.), it is really hard to nail down an accurate equation given the rounding.

So far I have noticed:

Mid 300's SP ==> 3 to 4 damage
Mid 400's SP ==> 4 to 5 damage
Mid 500's SP ==> 5 to 6 damage

There still could be some weapon speed related modifier, but the numbers are too small to get a good shake at it.

Honestly, if the damage is going to be this low, I would almost prefer it not be there at all. It just makes the reverse engineering annoying and we pretty much have to end up ignoring the effects some of the time for our equations.

Cathela · 10/14/08, 1:36 PM

Originally Posted by jere

Honestly, if the damage is going to be this low, I would almost prefer it not be there at all. It just makes the reverse engineering annoying and we pretty much have to end up ignoring the effects some of the time for our equations.

Yeah. Remember when they first announced that SoV would give extra damage on a hit with a full stack and everyone got really excited until they saw how tiny the numbers were?

As far as determining whether weapon speed plays into it or not, can't you just go buy a couple of white vendor weapons? The weapon store in IF next to the bank sells a good spread of 1-h weapon speeds.

Denogran · 10/14/08, 2:35 PM

Originally Posted by Cathela

(I've decided to make my warrior alt into an inscriptor for the extra slot; that's how much I like the warrior glyphs.)

Didn't they get rid of the extra slot?

Also, now that we're at the patch, what are you guys doing for talents @ 70? I'm thinking something like THIS, but probably haven't thought it through well enough.