jere

Have you checked to see what they did with the Libram of Zeal? With SotC gone, I have no clue offhand what they turned it into and I am at work, so I can't check at the moment.

 

Prinsesa

As with the Libram of Souls Redeemed, the Libram of Zeal has not been updated to the new Paladin mechanics and thus currently does nothing on the PTR/Beta.

Beta testers, perhaps you could raise this issue on the Beta forums? The Belt of the Guardian response indicates Blizzard is listening, as long as we tell them what to look for.

While we're on this discussion, the [Libram of the Eternal Rest] could possibly use some tuning, since Consecration does not scale with JUST spell power anymore.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

thedopefishlives

So I was planning on tanking something last night, but failed to take into account the massive overpopulation of the US PvE server. *grumbles* If/when the lag ever stabilizes at something approaching normalcy, then I'll go out and get some testing done.

 

Mordekhuul

PsiVen, you didn't include it in your list, but I'm going to presume that [Heartless] falls in line somewhere just barely below [Syphon of the Nathrezim], only with a nice chunk of stamina included as a bonus?

To your knowledge, are the formula you applied here still accurate on beta/PTR? I imagine we'll want to revisit all such rankings closer to 3.0.2 release, as we are likely to see another pass on our trees/abilities by then, but I've been looking to wrap my head around the joined list of spellpower/physical-dps weapons available to us in 3.0.2, pre-wrath.

 

• Smithist

It just increases the damage done by 47, there is no spell damage involved. I don't see a need to adjust it.

 

Kayoto

If I'm not mistaken, that Libram actually operates as if you had 47 additional spell damage for Consecration only (the spell damage coefficient is still applied to that 47, etc).

I'm not entirely sure though, it's been a long time since I've seen the tests done with it back in the day.

 

PsiVen

Follow the link for up-to-date rankings for the latest Beta. The list has actually changed quite significantly since the global reitemization and super-normalization of HotR. For the most part they should still be accurate figures for level 70, but someone there has also been adapting the spreadsheet for use with actual 70 spell ranks.

Certainly, gems and enchants are independent. Engineering stuff currently counts as an enchant, as do the LW patches. The general idea is that every crafting profession gets the equivalent benefit of about 2 gem slots, while everyone can now get an extra gem slot in their belt.

 

thedopefishlives

Okay, first impressions:

I finally got into regular Ramps and soloed the first few pulls. While not a substantive test of aggro gen, I at least got a feel for the damage output we can expect. I'm in mostly T4/badge/ZA gear right now, with ~1000 AP and ~650 spell damage, and my I was throwing nearly 1k dps with Hammer, JoL, Consecration, SoV and Holy Shield. I pulled the first 3 mobs on that test, and when the pull was over I had half a mana bar left. On the next two-pull I stopped using Consecrate and JoL, and I was mana positive with JoW/Hammer/Holy Shield/SoV. I also realize that these mobs are way below my level, so I'm going to be doing some more tests in other instances, but this was my first impression of prot as it will be in 3.0. Needless to say, I feel reasonably confident we'll be able to keep up.

 

◊ Cathela

I haven't gotten to tank as much as I'd like (beta still needs more damn healers) but between the new BoSanct and the new Divine Plea it's really really hard to go OOM while tanking, unless you're doing blatantly wasteful things like spamming Cons on single targets and that kind of thing.

That's the thing I like about the class developers; when they identify a problem they don't just fix it, they fix it 2-3 different ways just to make sure it's covered.

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

 

◊ Cathela

EDIT: Arrrgh, chain post. Sorry.

That could also be addressed by making it proc on parries and/or dodges as well as blocks. It's never bothered me that much, but given that the talent as a whole is getting weaker in WotLK that'd be a nice change.

Well, even without CBs, just having more blows coming in quickly is going to make you at least somewhat more prone to damage spikes. That said, I'm basically with you in that I've never considered it a serious problem. The only cases I'm aware of where parry-gibbing has been a serious issue are (a) Mother/Naloraak/Halaazi where you have multiple tanks standing in front of the boss, and (b) Brutallus, who dual-wields and has the Sunwell Radiance buff. In all of those cases the devs turned off parry-hasting (well, eventually at least).

Regardless of the ins and outs of Reckoning, warriors and druids are pretty much constantly spamming parryable specials, so any case where Reckoning is going to be a real liability to a prot paladin it's also going to be a liability to any prot warrior or feral (and probably DKs as well), and for that reason I think the devs aren't going to allow that to get out of hand with any boss.

However, given that they seem to be pushing us towards using fast warrior-style tanking weapons (i.e., the super-normalization of HotR) I'd like to see the charge limit on Reckoning raised to 8 or so, if not removed entirely. 8 swings seems to me like a good "best case" number of swings with a fast one-hander, given some haste (e.g., WF totem) and a parry or two in 8 seconds.

I believe it's 5 yards as it is right now (melee range). I'd like to see 10.

As for the silence thing, I'll take that as confirmation that it is physical now again. If someone could test SotR and DS as well, that'd be great.


Also, Psiven mentioned earlier the difficulty of staying uncrittable in Naxx. There was a blue post recently on the beta forums saying that this is basically a problem for all plate-wearing tanks (druids get uncrittable through talents) and they're looking into ways to fix it.

For my money, being uncrittable is kind of badly done the way it's set up right now, with all bosses having the same crit rate. It basically sets one bar you need to reach, no matter what progression level you're at. It's a pain in the ass at the start of progression, and then it turns into an afterthought by the end. It's basically the same kind of experience as dealing with uncrushability for BC prot paladins. Not as big of a pain in the ass, but still the same kind of pain in the ass.

It would be better if the amount of defense needed for uncrittability went up with raid progression, such as by having mob crit rates start off low in T7 and then increase through T8 and T9, or whatever. But that might be frustrating for players since they wouldn't necessarily know how much defense they need until they've wiped a few times to being gibbed by crits.

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

 

Mordekhuul

Has Blizzard addressed this on their forums to any degree? Perhaps a 1000+ health difference between paladins and warriors won't make or break anyone's viability or even preference as a raid main tank, but it is an interesting inherit disparity and makes me wonder what offsets this or at least the reasoning behind it.

 

Halion

I don't think it is a Prot Paladin vs Prot Warrior matter, but rather a Paladin vs Warrior matter. If they increase base health of paladins, they increase base health of Holy and Ret Paladins along with Prot. I believe the concern is Holy Paladin health for arenas more than anything.

 

Denogran

From their internal testing of Naxx:
Link: Feral Tanking Concerns

 

Prinsesa

Since blues responded on changing the Belt of the Guardian to the new Tankadin mechanics, I decided to make a list of all the TBC Tankadin gear that was similarly missed in the pass and still needs the spell power to STR conversion. Much obliged if someone could post this on the Beta forums.

Note: I'm posting this in CODE so the item links are preserved for copying over.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

◊ Cathela

Posted. Personally I think it's unlikely they're going to care about blue/green TBC items, but it's worth a shot.

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

 

Dram

I can confirm that DS works through silence.

 

mclem

Is HS too much to hope for? I don't think I've seen a comment on that either way, but it'd be a huge boon for tanking silencing bosses.

 

Prinsesa

Bostung over in the WOTLK Warrior thread ran some threat tests in this post and found that Salvation is indeed baked into Defensive Stance.

That is, the tooltip indicating 145% threat generation is now completely bogus, and Defensive Stance actually generates 207.35% threat.

If we are to follow this for Righteous Fury, then one should expect it to generate (1.9 / 0.7) or 271% threat for Holy damage.

I'll try to run the script he used for testing once I get the chance on the PTR, and I also invite others to test for verification.

If nothing else, this confirms that the "baking in" of Salv was really through a direct increase in threat output, and is independent of any new tanking abilities we're already getting.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

DdarkDdemon

It would further negate the usefulness of reckoning to a certain extend.
If the modifier of holy damage is changed with the formula 1.9/0.7 (which happened to defensive stand 1.45/0.7), the modified threat generated by auto attack will not increase.

Eventhough autoattack is only a small part of our threatgeneration and reckoning is mainly important because it procs seals, with the increased usefulness of warriortanking/rogue mainhand weapons autoattacks will be more significant than before.

 

Redcape

This is really over the top. Even if level 80 paladin tanks were only doing 1500 dps (which is a heinous underestimation) they would be delivering 3730 threat/sec. This would mean that threat simply isn't a thing anymore. I imagine they will be either nerfing down some of the prot/bear dps abilities to compensate though.

Either way, having this information not be reflected in the tooltip is pretty stupid. The players should actually get to see what their abilities do.

 

Tilted

And a warrior doing the same amount of damage would be doing 3112.5 TPS from damage alone, before "baked in" threat generation from things like Devastate and Shield Slam. I don't have those numbers in front of me, but I can't imagine the end result would be much (if at all) less than if Righteous Fury had a 271% multiplier.

From what little reports I've seen from beta, threat is a sheer afterthought in almost all encounters. Tanks simply don't have to try to hold aggro. Time will tell if this paradigm holds true, but I can't believe it's intended to stay that way.

 

Sydane

It isn't over the top, it's exactly the same as everyone in your raid having Blessing of Salvation, which is what they said they were doing. It's a very solid buff to non-paladin tanks in 5 mans because they will have the same threat buffer that paladins have long enjoyed. Taking something that was a flat mandatory buff for basically any real raiding encounter and just integrating it into the mechanics was a great move. I do agree that the tooltips should be updated, but tooltips have been notoriously inaccurate for years anyway, and there is talk of a whole new and more accurate tooltip system coming down the line eventually anyway.

Empathy does not imply approval.

 

Tilted

Don't forget though that we're doing 2-3x more damage with the new mechanics, which means the "baked in" multipliers inflate threat generation to monster levels. Blizzard appears to have set the multipliers simply on the change of talents and removal of Salv, but they haven't taken into account that raw damage output has gone up so much that threat gen is a total non-issue on single targets.

 

Redcape

I definitely think that making nonpaladin tanks be able to hold decent threat in a 5 man is a great idea. However, doing it by raising tank damage and putting dps stats on tank gear is a good idea, and doing it by raising threat coefficients hugely at the same time is a bad idea. They need to set a bar for tank dps vs. standard dps and make threat coefficients to match, this current implementation feels very hacked together.

 

◊ Cathela

Not to be a broken record, but this is precisely why I think we didn't get salv "baked into" RF.

Remember that we're getting a massive new single-target threat generating tool. Prot warriors aren't; their main new toys in WotLK are some AoE utility stuff and some talents to shake up the tanking rotation and make things more interesting. But they aren't getting a new threat-generation tool that's even remotely as powerful as SotR.

I'm 95% certain that SotR is our new "baked-in salv". I'll run tests tomorrow if nobody beats me to it.



In other news, I did some investigation of the defense and uncrittability issue. With no defense skill from talents anymore (Anticipation change), we'll need to get 140 defense skill from gear to be uncrittable against +3 mobs, which is 689 defense rating. Right now the absolute best I can do with my "Tier 6.1" gear is 522 defense rating. I can probably push that up a bit with some level 80 gems, but I don't see a whole lot of level 80 blues that offer significant defense upgrades unless you really focus on getting defense above everything else.

(e.g., the crafted level 76 blue helm has more +defense than any of the level 80 helms, the highest-defense chestpiece requires level 73, etc.)

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