Qalor

However, if I remember correctly, the only reason the Guardian came out ahead was because it gained an inordinate amount of spell damage from its sacrificed dps. If that is a bug or a random glitch, then caster weapons won't win out.

 

◊ Cathela

Right, exactly. I don't really think this is a problem, but I do think the developers need to be aware of it, because we're going to be demanding more slow-swinging spellpower weapons as the game goes on. (Most caster weapons have speeds of 2.0 or faster; [Gavel of Unearthed Secrets] is a very unique weapon in TBC.)

URLs for people following along at home (can't do an item link for beta items):

Titansteel Guardian
Titansteel Bonecrusher

According to Hyzenthlei, sacrificed dps turns into spellpower at a rate of 4 sp/dps. The Guardian sacrifices 60.9 dps compared to the Bonecrusher, which should turn into 244 spellpower. Even if the attack power on the Bonecrusher gets turned into spellpower and added in, that's still only another 82 spellpower for a total of 326.

I think what happened here is that they calculated the spellpower based on sacrificing the Guardian's dps all the way down to the old 41.3dps that's common for pre-WotLK caster items. That would be 102 dps sacrificed, or about 408 spellpower. Add in the 82 spellpower from converting the AP, and you end up with exactly 490 spellpower.

The question is whether that's a mistake, or if that's the new standard way to do things.

EDIT: The blue weapons in WotLK appear to follow the same pattern. Compare at ilevel 187:

Beguiling Scepter
Meathook's Slicer

The standard dps for one-handers at this ilevel is 120. The Scepter has 314 spellpower, which implies 78.5 dps sacrificed -- which would normally yield a 41.5dps weapon, rather than 73.6.

So they're pushing the melee dps on caster weapons up, without correspondingly taking away spellpower.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

Redcape

It looks like caster weapons are getting the same progression as they used to in spellpower for their ilvl but only losing 60% of their dps progression instead of 100%. It sure seems like prot paladins will be using caster weapons at that point, regardless of what random stats they allocate to them on top of the inherent spellpower (barring a few truly awfuls, like int/spirit or haste!).

 

Polishedhead

Hello my purple armor wearing friends.

I have a question regarding M'uru's Void Spawns & shadow resistance gear. I hear they melee and they also cast resistable shadowdamage. Questions are:

For a Paladin who tanks the Sentinel plus the spawns; does it help using shadow resistance gear, if so, how much?

For a Paladin who tanks only the spawns; does it help using shadow resistance gear, if so, how much?

Reason i ask is our pally doesn't want to spend ~1.5k gold on the set, if it helps, he's gonna need it, so i need to know for sure that it helps. Therefore if u can give a reason as to why it helps rather than "ye our guild did that lol" it would be great (apologies if this sounds rude). I'm pretty sure it CAN be done both ways.





Also a sub-question. Is it worth grouping up 2 sets of spawns before AoEing or should they always be killed as they come before the second set of spawns have arrived?

 

Dippyskoodlez

While we're still on muru.... not yet killed... heres what ive found :O

I wear 273 shadow resist, and tank about 2 waves of spawns at a time. (Neck, cloak, boots, belt) Then i stack spell damage for threat!

If you can heal a paladin through sentinal tanking plus voids... well.... wow you have some crazy healers o_o.

The sentinal hits like a truck, and in full shadow resist you wont be able to tank it.

Shadow resist does help mitigate a LOT of the void spawns shadowbolts though. Their melee damage is almost completely eaten away from block value.

Also note in that set of shadow gear and t6, im at 483 defense which is enough for the spawns, but im also not gemmed 15 stam every socket like a lot of people.

 

◊ Cathela

Doing some simple theorycrafting on the value of different stats for threat. Assuming all relevant talents for the most part (stat multipliers) plus BoK plus Unleashed Rage or equivalent. Ignoring One-hand Spec since it scales everything. Assuming Shield spec gets fixed to include Strength-derived block value. Ignoring misses/crits/resists for simplicity; I'm just going for back-of-the-envelope accuracy here.

1 WepDPS -> White dps: 1.0 (*armor factor) (*reckoning factor) tps
1 WepDPS -> HotR: 1.90/6 = 0.317 (*WepSpd) tps

1 AP -> White dps: 1/14 = 0.0714 (*armor factor) (*reckoning factor) tps
1 AP -> SoR: 0.05*1.90 = 0.095 (*reckoning factor) tps
1 AP -> JoR: 0.36*1.25*1.90 = 0.855 (/judgementCD) tps
1 AP -> Consecration: 0.04*1.90 = 0.076 tps
1 AP -> HotR: 1/14*2.4*1.20*1.90 = 0.391 tps
1 AP -> HotR/SoR: 0.05*1.90*WepSpd/6 = 0.095*WepSpd/6 tps

1 SP -> SoR: 0.10*1.90 = 0.190 (*reckoning factor) tps
1 SP -> JoR: 0.58*1.25*1.90 = 1.378 (/judgementCD) tps
1 SP -> Consecration: 0.04*1.90 = 0.076 tps
1 SP -> Holy Shield: 0.10*1.35*1.90 = 0.257 (*blocks per second) tps
1 AP -> HotR/SoR: 0.10*1.90*WepSpd/6 = 0.190*WepSpd/6 tps

1 Str -> AP: 2.0 AP
1 Str -> ShR: 0.50*2.0*1.15*1.20*1.90/6 = 0.437 tps

1 Sta -> SP: 0.3 SP

Converting gear stats to character-sheet stats:

1 Str on gear -> Str: 1.15*1.10 = 1.265 Str
1 Str on gear -> AP: 2*1.15*1.10*1.10 = 2.783 AP
1 AP on gear -> AP: 1.10 AP
1 Sta on gear -> Sta: 1.06*1.10*1.10 = 1.287 Sta
1 Sta on gear -> SP: 1.287*.3 = 0.385 SP

Okay, plugging in some numbers. Assume:

40% Reckoning uptime
30% physical damage reduction from target armor
9 second CD on judgements
Weapon speed of 2.40
One block every 2.5 seconds, hence 0.40 blocks per second.

Then, converting from nominal values on gear/buffs:

+1 Weapon DPS = 1.297 tps
+1 Attack Power = 1.260 tps
+1 Spell Power = 0.674 tps
+1 Strength = 4.059 tps
+1 Strength = 3.506 tps (pre-ShR)
+1 Stamina = 0.259 tps

Going through equal itemvalue amounts of these stats:

3.429 Strength = 13.920 tps
3.429 Strength = 12.022 tps (pre-ShR)
6.857 Attack Power = 8.640 tps
4 Spell Power = 2.696 tps
5.14 Stamina = 1.332 tps
1 Weapon DPS = 1.297 tps

So basically for threat gearing: Strength > AP > SP > Weapon damage, and only go for stamina as a survival stat. (Check my math, of course.)


On a separate note, does any know if stacking haste reduces the GCD for non-spell abilities? I'm thinking about HotR and ShR, which are physical attacks (they can be cast through silence) and wondering how much haste you need before it buys you an extra GCD in your threat rotation.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

Denogran

We've not yet killed him either, but our first night of attempts I did both Sentinel and voids. It was some of the most fun tanking I've done in a long time - probably the most since my first Hyjal packs. We moved to a 4 tank strat though for now, as I will be missing a lot of the next couple of weeks and the three tank strat really depends on a well-geared protadin that knows the fight, whereas the 4 tank strat requires a much less knowledgeable/aware/geared prot pally.

As far as healing goes, it's a drag, ya. But if your healers are keeping your sentinel tank up, then it's not a lot more to keep a prot pally up as well. Our sentinel tank is often taking shadow bolt damage when he drags his sentinel over to die in my consecrate anyway, which puts him pretty close to the damage just I'd be taking doing them both.

 

Smurrf

Awesome work there...all the information I'd asked for, and then some. Now the question for this, are the resulting threat levels intended for level 70, or for level 80? I see where ShR is plugged in, but we won't have that for the remainder of the 70 3.0 raiding cycle.

 

◊ Cathela

Good question. Updated the post above to include entries for strength without Shield of Righteousness. It makes strength slightly less powerful, but still the best option by a good margin.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

ZulazeeluIcecrown

But the upshot as far as weapons go is... spelldamage is worth a lot more than weapon DPS, so don't throw out the spelldamage weapons after all? Just want to make sure I'm understanding correctly. If so, I personally think that's pretty cool. I like the flavor of using a different weapon than Warriors.

 

Dippyskoodlez

What about Tempest of Chaos? I absolutely love this thing for tanking, it certainly deserves a spot in the comparison. I attempted to fit it in the spreadsheet, but my lack of Excel skills is quite evident. 259 spell damage is awesome.

 

Nobbynob Littlun

Yes, although if you've got a dps weapon lying around it is still useful for dps when soloing. Also, the distinction from warrior tanking weapons might not be what you think (though I'm no mind reader!). Like us, their threat scales more off of strength, and sacrificing weapon damage for strength or attack power will see their threat increased everywhere aside from devastate - so I gather. But, this opportunity doesn't present itself to them as it does to paladins with spellpower weapons. Devastate is much more spammable than HotR, though, so it works out.

 

Dekkar

The nice thing about only the weapon giving us more threat at the expense of weapon damage while the rest of our gear has strength is that we will solo much better. I can see this happening:

-when tanking instances/raids, you need the additional threat from the spell damage weapon.
-when soloing /questing/grinding, you now have the option of using a higher DPS weapon, allowing for more white damage.


I like that.

 

bellator

Not see this mentioned, but the change to Blessing of Sanctuary looks good:-

As well as 3% dmg it also regens 2% mana / 10 rage / 20 runic power per block/parry/dodge.

This is quite a clever change. Now as we outgear places and our mana regen from being healed decreses out mana regen from BoSan should increase

 

Worldie

It's a great change, but i can see it reworked again before the end of the beta.
Expecially the rage return part, looks like too much powerful. 10 rage per dodge/parry/block, considering a ~40% combined avoidance for just being uncrittable, means they are going to get the proc about every 4 seconds.
It also gets in contrast with the previous talents added to the protection trees of warriors which granted way less than 10 rage per hit avoided.
I'd not be surprised if it gets reduced to 5 rage in a later build.
Still, a great change, finally a worth 21 pointer




To the one who asked about M'uru, we tried that tactic. Well, it's a very doable strategy, but i'd add a suggestion: tell the paladin's healers to literally spam heals, a second of no heals can be fatal. It's a very RNG dependant tactic.

 

Smurrf

Indeed. And with all the changes to mana regeneration going into effect, this was absolutely vital in order for Prot to feel more complete. We could have existed without it, of course, but I really like the idea of a full mana bar every 50 incoming attacks, plus mana regen from other sources. It still doesn't affect mana loss when being placed in an OT position, but that *may* work itself out elsewhere.

 

Worldie

The "mana while not taking damage" shouldn't be much a issue honestly, since the Replenishment mechanics affect the lowest in mana, hence a prot paladin not taking damage will get this fairly often. Hammer of the Righteous + Shield of Righteousness + Judgement isn't a very mana intensive rotation anyway and works for the big chunk of the Prot Paladin threat but take a lot of time to go out of mana, even with just JoW.

After all, the biggest mana drain for protection was Consecration, which is a major part of the threat in TBC, combined with resealing every 8-10 seconds.

 

bellator

The "mana while not taking damage" issue applies more to 5 and perhaps 10 mans when you outgear the place. In these situations one might not have replenishment which leave the paladins with JoW which is at most 0.5% mana per second. A HoTR/SotR/HS/Judgement rotation is still 3.66% mana per second.

How does the mana regen of SoW now work? (cant get onto beta)

Reason being, in a raiding situation as an offtank, one would drop HS from the rotation and just used judgement/HotR/Sotr. This would only use 2.56% mana per second. Replenishment and JoW should reduce this down to 1.56%. A offtanking paladin could seal swap between SoW and SoV with only a smallish drop in threat output. This may cover him.

 

Worldie

I don't think seal swapping would work. SoV needs to be refreshed every ~11 seconds, so you'd have to recast SoV every 10 seconds and then recast SoW, you'd just increase the mana usage instead of lowering it, since they both cost 14% of your base mana.

 

◊ Cathela

Well, there's also the role that weapon speed plays. Hammer of the Righteous uses normalized attack power, so the speed doesn't matter a whole lot for the actual HotR damage, but if you're using SoR, the speed of the weapon directly affects how large a chunk of SoR you get on a HotR strike. One reason why the Titansteel Guardian is so good threatwise is because it's a caster weapon that also has a slow attack speed.

This is why if you look at PsiVen's charts, you can see that slow melee weapons and fast caster weapons have similar threat values, but the slow caster weapons tend to drastically outclass other weapons at the same ilevel.

It's also fantastic for soloing; the more mobs you pick up, the more mana you get back. Basically it means if you grind 3+ mobs at a time, you can use SoR instead of SoW. It also means stacking avoidance is a nice way to go for soloing.

You could fit a seal-swap into a standard 9/6 rotation pretty neatly. You'd have to replace Consecration to do it, but casting a seal every 9 seconds costs less than casting Cons every 9 seconds.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

Worldie

True, but the above post was about a offtanking rotation, not a tanking one. No HS, no Consecration.

 

Nobbynob Littlun

Not so fast! Why would a warrior get BoSanct? Because you have both a prot warr and a prot pally.
Why would balancing the gains given by BoSanct to different classes matter? Because you'd have to choose one or the other for a particular fight.
Why would a warrior be chosen over a paladin, assuming identical gear, for this particular fight? Probably to ramp up the single target threat on whatever that is.
Why would a pally stay prot for this boss then? Because BoSanct's rage gain is awesomesauce enough to be worth it.

The rage component of this spell gets my Tarutaru Seal of Approval-Wooval.

 

PsiVen

Is this actually true/tested? My observations loosely indicated that HotR had not been normalized, and the spreadsheet reflects non-normalized AP currently.

 

◊ Cathela

I tested it with two low-level weapons with different speeds from the vendor in IF near the bank and found that it gave identical damage for both within a few points. This was 1-2 builds ago.

[Club] and [Shortsword] were the weapons, IIRC.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

Tilted

One nitpick in your numbers: I don't see crit listed at all. While we're most likely not going to shoot for crit on our gear, it does have an impact in that not all of our threat-building moves can crit. Overall though, nice work.

As for haste, currently spell haste affects caster GCD to a minimum of 1.0s, but melee haste does NOT affect the GCD of melee abilities. I'm not sure how this works in beta, though, so someone else will have to chime in for that one. With how gear homogenization is going, it's entirely possible this could change.