WotLK talent trees/abilities discussion - Page 111

Gevlin · 08/06/08, 4:57 PM

Originally Posted by flyingtoastr

With 4% hit from talents you're looking at a ~10.6% chance to not hit the boss with each swing (9%-4% miss + 5.6% dodge) from behind. Not great, but not terrible either.

A little off-topic here, but I was under the impression dodge was actually 6.5% on bosses....

• frmorrison · 08/06/08, 5:01 PM

Originally Posted by Gevlin

A little off-topic here, but i was under the impression dodge was actually 6.5% on bosses....

It is 6.5% dodge, but remember he is a Human so will have 5 expertise on his melee attacks, so he has 10.25% miss + dodge actually.

Gevlin · 08/06/08, 5:05 PM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

It is 6.5% dodge, but remember he is a Human so will have 5 expertise on his melee attacks, so he has 10.25% miss + dodge actually.

Right, I was just confused where the 5.6% came from.

Torq · 08/06/08, 5:11 PM

Originally Posted by Antmanton

I will concede efficiency, since the Retribution paladin deals more damage, but I will contest the ease. Its not like Judgement is a horrendously complex or difficult to execute spell, all you need to worry about as a healer is "will my healing target die inside the next GCD if I do this?" If you're at least halfway competent, you should be thinking at least that far in advance anyhow to determine your next spell, so deciding whether or not you can safely Judge should not be an extra burden on you.

Not to mention that JotW is not a limited overwritable buff or debuff; the party or raid gets a full benefit from each paladin with the talent.

[e] I addressed the build issues in a previous post; suffice to say you don't need to give up any points in Holy Guidance to pick up Sheath and JotW, although it does cost you JotP and all of the PvP goodies you might otherwise take.

Well, I put some simple numbers into a spreadsheet and came up with some results.

I went through all the plate spellpower items on wowhead, and threw together something you might be wearing at 76-77 range. Since there's nothing end-game in the list (other than the ring), I didn't have much else to go on.

Note that most "healing plate" is now primarily itemzed with stam, int, and spell power, and then 0 or 1 of [crit, haste, mp5]

Oddly enough, with the sample set (and the MH I linked earlier), both the stam and int values were 531, with 0 str. I tossed 200 in there to account for a few buffs, then factored in Kings and nothing else. These were my results:

Buffed:		
Strength:	220	
Stamina	584.1	
Intellect	584.1	
SP:	1233.435	
		
	w/o SotP	SotP
SealoR	261.6183	300.861045
JoR	1099.40755	1264.318683
JotW	0	219.88151
SoW	234.2809	0
JoW	150.60915	150.60915

The two specs are the one with SotP and JotW (assumed for maximum benefit) and the one without either. Both are Sheath specs. The JotW number is .6*JoR/3 so mana per 8 seconds (with imp Judgement). The SotP build assumes running SealoR and unleashing with Judgement of Wisdom, while the other assumes running JoW and doing the same.

It's a little misleading, but the JoW numbers are actually the mana you'd get back from a JoW proc, assuming you were the one who put it up.

So, even though you'd be providing ~660 mana to the group/raid every 8 seconds, I'd say going with SoW and dropping JotW would be more applicable to the primary role as a healer.

These numbers are really rough, but they do illustrate a point.

levk · 08/06/08, 5:12 PM

Originally Posted by Antmanton

I'd sooner give up Enlightened Judgement than Holy Guidance. You want to be in melee range anyhow to take advantage of JoW and JoL, to pick up all of your AP buffs, and to hit everyone with Retribution Aura if you're the one running it. The 4% to hit is very nice, don't get me wrong, but you can suffer along without it much easier than the loss of 112 spell power (assuming 800 intellect).

They're sure to rework that talent, look at what shamans got - nature's blessing went from 30% to 15% for same 3 points.

EDIT: Torq, so very roughly you got 660 mp8 = 413 mp5 for 3 people just from JotW with SoR active from a 500 int/500 stam and base str holy spec? That's chainchugging mana pots for 3 people. Granted what me and Antmanton are talking about is far more judicious use than every 8 seconds.

Cathela · 08/06/08, 5:28 PM

It's worth noting that even in my weaksauce Ret gear in the beta, JoW returns 179 mana per proc, while Judgement itself only costs 147. In other words, if you judge and get a JoW proc, that's already a mana profit. A build that lets you judge every 8/10 seconds while healing is going to have a built-in mana advantage over a build that doesn't which I think is one of the stronger arguments for JotP.

JotW would get you even more per judgement (or at least it would get more mana for your raid as a whole.) But I think the problem with picking up JotW in a healing build is that to do it you have to give up JotP, which is a talent that actually makes it easier to judge frequently.

watersrog · 08/06/08, 5:31 PM

The problem really isn't Sheath of Light being stronger than Beacon of Light. The problem is that right now, paladins are weakest healing class and on top of that what they got in WotLK will only widen the gap. Did a mini review 3 pages ago on what every class got and although its not perfect (underestimated a bit Infusion of Light), I think it somewhat sums up things. Paladin healing only got way more complicated (which is a good thing, was kinda boring before), not so much better than before.

Unir · 08/06/08, 6:06 PM

Originally Posted by Gevlin

Excellent! (well not really, but its good to know). I was under the wrong impression. Even so, with most healing weapons in the sub 2s swing speed range and JoW/SoW proc'ing every swing we will be able to sit on an instant HL and get a couple mana-regening swings in, as someone previously stated, and this will prove to be a more desireable playstyle for most players.

It is possible to do this now, even if they are changing the coefficients.

I'm curious - does anyone doing progression raiding do this now? Did you in BWL or AQ / Naxx? Why or why not?

I think some are assuming we will be in melee range beating on a boss and using SoW, which is not new at all, and is going to require a pretty serious change in encounter design to be considered a useful mana-return solution.

The reasons Holy palys do not make use of SoW for raiding mana return now and pre-BC are evident - in order to consider SoW to be a viable mana return mechanic for WotLK you must first posit that raid design will change sufficiently to allow that to be the case.

flyingtoastr · 08/06/08, 6:16 PM

Originally Posted by Unir

It is possible to do this now, even if they are changing the coefficients.

I'm curious - does anyone doing progression raiding do this now? Did you in BWL or AQ / Naxx? Why or why not?

I think some are assuming we will be in melee range beating on a boss and using SoW, which is not new at all, and is going to require a pretty serious change in encounter design to be considered a useful mana-return solution.

The reasons Holy palys do not make use of SoW for raiding mana return now and pre-BC are evident - in order to consider SoW to be a viable mana return mechanic for WotLK you must first posit that raid design will change sufficiently to allow that to be the case.

I can only think of... 3 bosses in tier 6 where standing with the melee would cause serious problems right now. People are just stuck with the mindset that healer = caster = stay away.

Right now it is only difficult because we don't have tools to rapidly recoup lost throughput from taking a break to swing our hammers. With the massive buffs to Holy Shock and Infusion of Light we do have these tools and can make great use of them. Combined with long duration Seals and Judgements (especially SoW and JoW) not only scaling well but giving additional bonuses (all 3 specs have a major utility tied to Judgement now) Paladins have a very good reason to "shake it up" and stand with the melee groups.

Remember that SoW is 14% of both your AP and SP every proc, or a good 420 with only 1500 AP and SP. With a 1.8 speed weapon (dropped to 1.62 with JotP) you're looking at a nice 129 Mp5 from SoW alone. With JoW on that target as well, even better.

Jessie · 08/06/08, 6:24 PM

The biggest reason I like the thought of a 51/20 build (assuming BoL becomes something appealing) is that no matter what your healing assignment is, the Divine Guardian talent will pretty much always allow you to get the full duration of your divine plea off by syncing it up with your bubble and reducing the raid's damage by 30% while you're not casting heals.

Of course, I've never been averse to respecing, so I really don't mind having a couple different options available.

Denogran · 08/06/08, 6:37 PM

Originally Posted by flyingtoastr

I can only think of... 3 bosses in tier 6 where standing with the melee would cause serious problems right now. People are just stuck with the mindset that healer = caster = stay away.

Naj'entus - Spread out (i.e. melee possible, but more of a headache).
Supremus - Chance of getting WTFPWNed vs staying out with no chance
Akama - Could do
Bloodboil - Depends on your Bloodboil groups
Gorefiend - Could do
RoS - Could do but P1 don't use a lot of mana, P2 your mana goes away anyway, and P3 is super-fast spam healing.
Mother - depends on setup
Council - Spreading out is much better idea
Illi - Could do in P 1 & 3/5
Rage - could do
Anatheron - better to be spread out
Kaz - Could do
Anatheron - Depends on how you do it, staying out of range of RoF means no
Archi - not a great idea to add more melee

But then look at SW. I've only done the first 3, so I can't speak for the rest. But you can't melee Kalecgos( not enough room to spread out in my experience ), Brut( just can't stop casting period, plus very set group locations ), or felmyst( limiting melee is a better idea imo ).

The real problem is that if you look at that list, the mana intensive fights that were actually difficult are generally the ones you shouldn't be meleeing.

Unir · 08/06/08, 7:49 PM

I have to agree with Denogran - SoW does not appear to be a viable mana return mechanic for Holies in many encounters seen so far pre-BC or post, and less so on the encounters where you need it most.

To assume we are going to be in melee range to make use of SoW, you must also assume such a change in encounter design is going to be make it more feasible than it is at this point - which begs the question: why is such a great mana return mechanic being made so situational? It's not as if Water Shield doesn't grant a passive 50 mp5.

I'm not convinced it's Blizzard intention for us to be in melee, either. That would be directly contra to the notion of giving us 30 yard judgements in the top of the holy tree and a benefit for judging tied to it.

Hulabaloon · 08/06/08, 7:59 PM

While on the topic of range, does anyone else think it strange that we have 40 yd heals, including a 40 yd HS and 40 yd cleanse, yet only 10/30 yd judgements and 30 yd auras (It's harder to justify spending a point in Aura Mastery now)?

Why not simply make everything 40 yards and be done with it?

Lockdown · 08/06/08, 8:44 PM

I think many posters in here are wasting much of their breath with this ShoL/BoL build talk. It´s definitely not done yet, we should be patient.

Looking at the shaman resto tree and especially the ""Tidal Waves" talent (btw who thinks "Ancestral Awakening" is a tad too powerful?), which lowers the cast time of your single target heals by 50% and gives them 25% more benefit from spellpower after casting Chain Heal, I´m quite convinced that JoP will be buffed to more than a mere 10%. I know I´m comparing two very different classes, but there is already much homogenization.
All I´m saying is that, if the developers want to have shamans feel kind of rewarded for not brainlessly spamming CH, the same is likely true for holy palas not mindlessly spamming 1 heal and instead get a reward for judging once in a while. As it stands now, 10% haste does look like a big enough incent.

Along with the announced revamp of BoL and probably moving ShoL deeper into the ret tree 51+ in holy will look much better. We´ll know soon enough.

mclem · 08/06/08, 8:53 PM

Originally Posted by Hulabaloon

(It's harder to justify spending a point in Aura Mastery now)?

As an aside, the more I look at Aura Mastery these days, the more I think "That's a glyph".