GSH

On a general level, it's a bug that should be fixed overall. Instant spells have certain characteristics. They can be cast on the run, and they do not reset the swing time. It's intuitive that a spell that becomes instant should behave like an instant cast spell. It makes the game simpler, more predictable, and easier to understand, especially for people who don't run mods like Quartz.

If it is necessary that AoW reset the swing time, a better solution is for AoW to reduce the FoL cast time to 0.1 or 0.2 seconds. Then it would obvious to all that it was still non-instant spell, and obeyed the rules for non-instant spells.

 

Malleus

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it should be the 51-point talent. If 45-yard Auras are moved to baseline then "Holy Renewal" would make a decent 11-point talent. Putting it any higher in the tree, I think I'd want it to be the "Consecration heals friendlies" talent that gets mooted by hacked off Healadins every seventeen minutes or so.

 

Andrast

Certainly not everything needs a downside, and I completely agree that AoW is a really fun talent that fits in well with our class. I really enjoy throwing out a heal on a neglected caster in a 5 man without having to complete cease all semblance of my main role. I am concerned about an imbalance particularly in PvP where Ret pallies can get say an extra 2k health every 15 seconds or so but I'm not certain if it is an issue despite knowing that other classes will certainly cry about it. It is a fairly decent argument to say that such a deep ret talent shouldn't have such a penalty hidden within it. At very least if the swing timer reset is intentional then it should be explicit that there is some dps loss from using it.

To be totally honest I'm not sure where you're finding long periods periods of time but maybe that's because I really get into things when I'm playing. The "rotations" (I use that word knowing that its not correct) I've been drawing up tend to suggest we get a free GCD around once every 10 seconds if we're going full-tilt.

Finally, I'm fairly sure I've been consistent in saying that AoW and MW are different talents serving different purposes and that because of this you can't make direct comparisons in the way many people have been making. If you say that MW and AoW are alike because they both allow instant heals to be cast, which you did, then I agree that they are similar in this way. But my point in that case was that they are similar in that both classes must sacrifice dps to cast those instant heals and that seems fair.

 

◊ Cathela

Okay, well previously you were saying that "in the scheme of things it probably isn't a big deal" which I took to mean that you didn't think it was a big balance issue; now you're saying it's extremely unbalanced. It looks like I jumped to a conclusion on that. I disagree about the balance, but that's a matter of opinion, so fair enough.

As for the rest, how are you doing anything other than arguing semantics here? You disagree that the talent would be more fun without the reset, but you apparently agree that it's confusing with the reset. "It's less fun this way" is a bad argument, but "it's fun but more confusing this way" is fine? Because you think the confusion doesn't lessen the fun? Or because you think fun shouldn't be a consideration but confusion should be?

It sounds like the same thing to me, so if it brings us to a resolution then fine, I'll say it your way: It's confusing this way.

I agree with that. But that's also exactly the problem with your argument that "no other class can do X while also doing Y without Z, so we shouldn't be able to either." It's consistency for the sake of consistency. That's not always a bad thing, but if it's standing in the way of a good idea it is.

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

 

Fiola

I'd rather not. Nerfing the spell for the sake of consistency doesn't help anyone.

 

flyingtoastr

Well I'll ignore your previous comments of:

or

Which both clearly show you comparing AoW requiring a downside to MW heals giving a downside and that you are in fact comparing them... But like I said, I'll be nice and won't rip your argument apart because you can't choose a single position.

Regardless!

You're comparing two completely different things. The purpose of MW is to increase DPS. The talent is there to make you cast the spells in your book that you so ignored for the last 4 years, again following the example that talent trees should enhance your baseline skills, not create completely new playstyles that feel like a different class.

Art of War on the other hand has nothing to do with DPS. AoW is all about UTILITY. It's about giving paladins a little something something to bring to a raid (health battery). Why are we penalized for filling a utility role?

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

GSH

Well, I disagree with this. I think it's more important for spells to be predictable and understandable than to be powerful. Power can always be compensated for with additional effects.

If everyone thinks a talent does X upon reading it, but it actually does Y, that's a worse thing for the game than for X to be slightly underpowered. Haven't you seen a new player get all excited about Vindication, and then you have to tell them that no, it's actually fairly useless because it doesn't work on anything hard.

To give another example, in Warhammer there are currently spells with cast times which can be cast on the run, and spells with cast times which cannot. It's crazy, and I can't find a pattern, so I have to remember that fact for every spell. There's lots of complaints on WAR forums stemming from the fact that people don't realize that spell X is much more useful than it seems because it can be cast on the run.

 

Redcape

Just stand in melee range of something but face away from it. You will get SoC procs on Judgement at the normal proc rate. SoR however does not proc on Judgement under any circumstances.

 

Demonseedx

On the current AoW issue, I'm not really sure you understand the implications here in terms of raid value your placing upon the Ret Paladin. He will be able to full dps and heal, thats not good for anyone. The stated intent of Blizzard is to have all the dps classes doing around the same dps as one another. With AoW not causing a falling off of dps you will have Ret paladins doing as much damage as any other class but also able to heal pretty effectively with the three heals available to them. Individually that may not be substantial but what if a raid stacks Ret paladins? You might be able to drop 3 spots and a healer for 4 Ret paladins doing both their jobs. The second Ret starts taking other peoples raid spots its nerf city for the spec and I don't think anyone wants that. Right now Ret is a very strong class that offers a ton of utility to a raid and probably the most desired of the Paladin specs, don't ruin that by crossing over to OP territory



TL;DR version - The potentially legitimate QQ from everyone else would nerf the spec if you AoW doesn't rest swing timer.

 

flyingtoastr

Ret paladins have 2 heals and only one is affected by AoW. Given a normal crit rate and that it only allows Flash of Light you're looking at a single 1.8k-ish heal every 15 seconds. A priest doing VE is a ton more healing than that for 5 people passively, and his healing throughput increases as his gear increases.

So no, you're pretty much wrong about everything.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Fiola

For a new player who doesn't know about swing timers, he probably doesn't even know about the swing timer reset caused by normal casting. The transparency added by nerfing AoW would be non-existent, unless all tooltips are updated to note, "this spell resets/does not reset your swing timer".

For players who do understand swing timer resets, one does not spec AoW because, "I get instant FoLs that don't reset the swing timer!" We spec AoW because "I get instant FoLs!" - and we see the usefulness of being able to deliver healing instantly, on the move.


Adding a 0.1 cast time to the AoW FoL would greatly reduce the "awsome fun" part of the talent - Instant healing, usable on the move - in return for extremely dubious benefits in transparency.

 

Anedris

One of the reasons I plan to level a ret paladin in Wrath is because I don't want to be a pure DPS class. It's fun to be able to contribute to healing. It's less fun when I suffer a significant DPS hit to do so, since it encourages me to simply play like a rogue in plate. (And rogues do more damage so I could just level my rogue if that was what I wanted to do.)

I like the self-healing aspect of divine storm but AoW, being controllable, is even more interesting. I don't have the latency to watch a swing timer with any accuracy and frankly I would rather watch the fight than stare at a swing timer anyways, so I don't see any value in having it reset the swing timer. (Anything relating to swing timers is also confusing, of course.)

I hardly think that a ret paladin throwing one FoL every 10ish seconds is overpowered. It's not like we're near the top of the DPS charts and giving us any more utility is going to make us brokenly desirable and every raid will be stacking 2-3 of us. It doesn't even matter that shadowpriests provide far more healing than this ever would - ret is a unique class/spec and its raid contribution should be balanced to equal those of other class/specs. I do not think instant FoLs that do not interfere with DPS, given that our DPS is middle to low-ish, is out of line.

(And I don't care about PvP and resent whenever it interferes with PvE.)

Basically, it's a fun mechanic and having it tied up in swing timers reduces the fun. I am not seeing any downside (unless it would break PvP balance, but as I said I don't PvP, don't follow PvP, and would rather not have PvP messing up PvE).

 

Demonseedx

My argument was inherently flawed because I exaggerated but the basic root is the same and really hasn't been answered. JoL, DS, FoL are all healing aren't they? How much healing does a Rogue, Warrior, or DK bring while supposedly adding the same dps? What buff/debuffs do they bring that makes them significantly better then just bringing two Ret Paladins?

 

flyingtoastr

A fury warrior heals himself for 3% of his total health every 10 seconds (Bloodthirst). A Death Knight in Blood Presence (which I believe is still the PvE DPS presence of choice) heals himself for 2% of all the damage he does. In addition if a DK is specced Blood he will have more passive healing for himself (Bloodworms) as well as an aura that makes all his party members regenerate health equal to 2% of the damage they cause (Blood Aura).

Rogues and Enhancement Shamans do not have passive healing abilities, but they make up for it with other utilities. Bloodlust. Totems. Misdirection (Tricks of the Trade). Cloak of Shadows. A threat dump (Vanish). So while we may have some nice little off-healing capabilities those other classes are far from worthless.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Hidden

Bloodthirst cooldown is 6 seconds only, not 10.
Otherwise correct, Rogues don't heal, they avoid the damage in the first place.

 

Qalor

The 2 major points to me are:
Instacasts don't interrupt your swing timer. You learn early on in the game that you can move, hit, hop around, whatever you want and do instas. The fact that an insta violates part of this arbitrarily, without notifying the player of this, is just a major inconsistency.

Mana. This subject hasn't been brought up as much, but it's been mentioned that current JotW mechanics allow for a full dps cycle with maybe a smidgen extra mana left over. That smidgen is not enough to support constant FoL while still going fill tilt, is it? If not, then there's no real point to this whole argument, because using FoL every time you can WILL result in a loss of dps.

 

Blutelf

Mana is not a concern. BoW, Mana Spring totem, Replenishment, Spiritual Attunement, and of course Divine Plea will make sure that you can spam FoL to your heart's content in PVE. The calculations I saw in this thread just took JoTW into account.

Besides, what does the mana loss you mention have to do with DPS loss? It only changes the total amount of damage you can deal before losing all mana. Your DPS will decrease because your swing timer is reset.

Reading the last few pages it's been mostly bickering. Why don't you start recount, go hit a dummy for 10 minutes, and show how much the swing reset hurts DPS, or how much mana using AoW FoL on every proc costs. Hard data is something we might all be interested in, speculations and personal wishes probably not so much.

 

Xaoc

Spells made instant through the use of talents, however, do reset yout swing timer. They also do not get any reduction in mana from Benediction because they are 'instant.'

 

flyingtoastr

No, SOME spells made instant through talents do not reset your swing timer. The big one here is of course Maelstrom Weapon.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Arthaal

Why is ret aura so terrible for us then? I have an aura that, untalented, doesn't help me in any way and has a paltry 30 yard range? On top of that, I take knockback damage in order to maximize my DPS (which, with 4.5k crit judgements during AW turn out to be a killer) while they heal themselves In PvP, DKs have more lives than a cat... deathstrike crits brings them back up from the dead an annoyingly large majority of times.

 

Hidden

It's not *some*, it's all that are used by melee classes, Fury Warriors instant Slam and Shamans instant whatever. Blizzard just doesn't care about changing it for Holy/Restoration/Restoration because it doesn't matter, it'd be extra work with no use.

 

Fiola

Which is not in the game yet. Everything we've seen up to now behaves like AoW does. (Non-instacast spell made instant will reset swing timer)


Does NS still reset swing timers on PTR/Beta? Then it seems we should be asking whether instant cast mechanics in general need to be standardized. (vs. making AoW act like Maelstrom Weapon) Also note that there are plenty of baseline instants that do reset the swing timer on Live - Priest instants, mage instants, druid instants . . .


There's plenty of inconsistency to go around.

 

Hidden

There are zero inconsistencies.
Live: All base spells with a cast time reset the swing timer, all without a cast time don't. Restoration Shamans and Restoration Druids can use NS to cast an instant heal that still resets the swing timer.
Beta: All base spells with a cast time reset the swing timer, all without a cast time don't. Slam was changed to delay the cast timer so you can always use it when you want and don't need to wait for the next swing. Enhancement Shamans and Fury Warriors have gotten talents that give them procs to make cast time abilities instant. Because the swing interrupt is coded into the spell and not checked every time the spell is used, they both interrupted the swing timer in their first implementation and were then fixed to make the spells truely instant, not resetting the swing timer. It's just logical that when Blizzard removes the "wait for next swing/shot to use an ability just after it"-abilities from Warriors and Hunters and makes all instant abilities used by other melee classes not interrupt the swing timer that they also make AoW proc real instants that don't reset the swing timer.

 

flyingtoastr

Well, actually Moonfire does reset the swing timer in live despite it's instant status, but we can chalk that up to very odd programmer choices.

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

Siawn

Please tell me you're not advocating that an ability be horribly nerfed because, "New people might be confused." Anyone who cares that it resets their swing timer will know about it, and act accordingly. Those who don't obviously aren't playing on a level where it would matter. Obviously I, and every other Paladin, would prefer that the ability be changed to stop resetting the swing timer, but in lieu of that, giving it a cast time, albeit a short one, is a terrible idea.