WotLK talent trees/abilities discussion - Page 222

Crossbones · 09/11/08, 9:35 AM

Originally Posted by Khaelarys

Admittedly, I see things slowly - but I'm just not seeing the point of moving Improved Ret Aura. Though I guess I'm still finding it difficult to imagine a build with E4aE. No reason to pick it up as holy - as prot, it makes 0 sense - and as ret, I'm spending at a minimum 32 points in the first 6 tiers - that's not counting the tasty pvp talents. Even shockadin builds, I just can't work those points in.

I guess it just makes more sense to yank the E4aE talent than it does to move Ret. What I'm definitely not complaining about is the much better fluidity - they talk about wanting a slight amount of bloat so that you have to pick and choose what you really want, and for the first time (ever) Ret really feels like that. There's several builds i wanna fool around with - all in ret. Very cool.

Question -
So with AoW and Righteous Vengeance, we're looking at a 2.45 damage multiplier for crits, plus the ability to sprinkle some Flash of Loving around.

I guess at this point, Fanatacism has found a way to make it into pvp builds?

Bah - I guess not. This is the best I can do for my first shot at a pvp build at 80. I think 3.0 is going to make me cry.

I'm a big fan of divine guardian for ret PvP since you need to go that deep for imp. HoJ anyway.

Unless you really want the 1% crit, 2/3 sanctified seals + stoicism is 96% dispel resistance, which is better than 100% since it wastes dispels and allows you to use a talent point elsewhere.

Not sure on auras. There's not enough pts to fully buff up ret aura. Would it still be worth using with just sanctified retribution? That's something I'd need to play around with.

Also not sure on BoK vs. DS. Especially since freedom no longer overwrites normal blessings.

I think I'd try something like this. 2 pts in righteous vengeance could become 2 pts in E4E if I felt I was being attacked often enough.

Chrix · 09/11/08, 9:38 AM

with the new art of war (specifically FoL instant cast) everyone seems to be talking about hybridity but in all honestly this does nothing for the PvE raiding ret paladin because it does nothing for dps which is the slot in a raid a ret paladin would fill. While an instant FoL could save a raid from a wipe theoretically; realistically it probably won't (get better healers).

Valerys · 09/11/08, 9:41 AM

The instant FoL is more likely to be used to save yourself from death while healers are busy keeping the tank up, in a situation where there's lots of raid damage flying around (e.g. Kalecgos). Just a little added personal security.

Blackthought · 09/11/08, 9:47 AM

Dont these changes mean that a so-called "shockadin" build is now sustainable. I was thinking that something like Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft should put out decent damage with infinite sustainability, CC and decent healing. Looks like it could be a fun leveling spec.

flyingtoastr · 09/11/08, 9:53 AM

Originally Posted by Khaelarys

Question -
So with AoW and Righteous Vengeance, we're looking at a 2.45 damage multiplier for crits, plus the ability to sprinkle some Flash of Loving around.

Old, but it needs to be pointed out.

Critical Strike Damage Bonus talents are multiplicative. 1.2 * 1.25 = 1.5.

Judgement and Divine Storm crit at a whopping 250%.

EDIT: 25-man tier sets are mined:
Holy
Ret
Prot

Check MMOC for all of them.

Shuror · 09/11/08, 10:08 AM

Originally Posted by flyingtoastr

The 4-piece set bonus was unintended though. I remember seeing something about the intent of the bonus to bump up SA regen to 20% but because of the way their multiplicative system works it only gave 1%.

I doubt they'd make that kind of mistake again.

I have a hard time to imagine that. That would be like a set bonus for for example prot warriors which was: increases rage generation by 100%. And if they did intend to change it to an additive effect, why didn't they do it afterwards?

Originally Posted by flyingtoastr

Old, but it needs to be pointed out.

Critical Strike Damage Bonus talents are multiplicative. 1.2 * 1.25 = 1.5.

Judgement and Divine Storm crit at a whopping 250%.

In live, the Mage talents Spell Power and Ice Shards, both crit damage bonus increase talents, actually stack additively with eachother. There is no evidence to suggest that this case would be different.

thedopefishlives · 09/11/08, 10:09 AM

Originally Posted by fredshino

Playing around with the new protection talent tree, I came up with this:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...13251533312321

What do you guys think? Has anyone ran any theorycraft comparing 5 points in Seals of the Pure vs 5 points in Divine Strength?

In case Seals of the Pure is better, how about moving those 3 points in Reckoning to Divine Strength?

My raid-MT spec of choice is actually this: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...10251533312321 The two points in Benediction are just something I threw around after getting Imp Devo; I also had the thought of 5/5 Reckoning and dropping the Benediction and Imp Devo. I have to admit that I'm quite pleased by what they did with the Prot tree, but I'm also hoping that they give us a couple more choices, maybe in deep Prot where we're already pretty much forced to take every single point because they're so GOOD.

Khaelarys · 09/11/08, 10:19 AM

Originally Posted by Crossbones

Unless you really want the 1% crit, 2/3 sanctified seals + stoicism is 96% dispel resistance, which is better than 100% since it wastes dispels and allows you to use a talent point elsewhere.

<snip>

I think I'd try something like this. 2 pts in righteous vengeance could become 2 pts in E4E if I felt I was being attacked often enough.

I don't know dude - I run 2/3 SS now too, because a) I want the protection and b) I don't really care most of the time if my seal gets dumped. I'm not at all convinced I'm willing to let my 16% mana cost seal get janked off, only to find I can't judge for my mana regen anymore.

flyingtoastr · 09/11/08, 10:34 AM

Originally Posted by Shuror

I have a hard time to imagine that. That would be like a set bonus for for example prot warriors which was: increases rage generation by 100%. And if they did intend to change it to an additive effect, why didn't they do it afterwards?

In live, the Mage talents Spell Power and Ice Shards, both crit damage bonus increase talents, actually stack additively with eachother. There is no evidence to suggest that this case would be different.

I had to look it up but it does seem Crit Bonus is still additive. Pretty stupid and I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see that change given that every single other percentage multiplier (which crit is) is multiplicative.

And bumping SA up to 20% is not the same as giving warriors double rage. Warriors and Druids already have infinante rage on boss fights. One attack and they jump up to 100%. Paladins on the other hand still run into mana problems, even while tanking. I know our prot pally still chain-chugs when he's tanking.

As for why not change it: see Ret T6 4-piece. They clearly haven't changed any of the craptastic bonuses.

levk · 09/11/08, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by Cathela

I really don't understand the logic behind making BoK a five-point T1 talent as opposed to just making it baseline. It's too powerful to be baseline, but it's just fine if it's a first-tier talent? I don't really think it's worth making a big deal over at this point, since the solution they've implemented pretty much fixes the problem, but it just seems silly.

They're balancing it against PoJ for holy, which isn't something I'm liking personally. True that full BoK opens GF but whatever. I wish they moved conviction a tier shallower, that tier just isn't appealing anymore. Or just make kings a total 3 point investment - 2 points for improved.

For holy itself I'm just assuming changes are coming. With prot getting buffed damage on core abilities and base bread and butter holy farming stuff reduced in damage they're probably going to attach damage to upper holy tiers. Most likely move imp SoR (whatever it's called now) much deeper and attach the penalty removal on divine plea. 10 seconds out of a minute for 50% is a lot for a healer while ret and prot don't get affected at all for their roles. Probably put aura mastery in its place if it's oh-so powerful to be baseline. Fiddle some more with the top of the tree and call it a day.

I still strongly believe JotW is still going to be base mana before it goes live. Assuming 30k mana for holy, 6k per 8 seconds is a metric asston. And since you'll get undispellable seals on the way this would be the required arena healing spec. And it still easily beats divine plea without any penalties. If you consider melee range a penalty you don't even have to be in melee range, just run in and judge once in a while.

Overall I'm bummed about sheath, but I'll reserve judgment until I see holy changes in the flesh.

Smurrf · 09/11/08, 10:59 AM

Wouldn't surprise me at all to see a Glyph of Divine Plea that reduces the hit that healing takes, in exchange for a longer CD. It does seem really odd to make a Holy spell that has any detriment at all for Holy Pallies (much less what it does have now), and is exactly optimized for Prot and Ret.

Spiry · 09/11/08, 11:22 AM

Tier3 of Prot is looking rather sparse after the removal of Kings, surely they'll have to come up with an 11pointer?

Smurrf · 09/11/08, 11:51 AM

Perhaps I missed this somewhere, if I did I apologize. I was under the impression that a big downfall of Beacon of Light was that it healed the Beacon for only the effective healing of the actual healing target. Has that changed? Reason I ask is that WoWInsider has a screenshot where that's decidedly not the case in one of its latest posts: Ask a Beta Tester: Of Paladins and Primals - WOW Insider

Could that be checked and verified? If it can heal the Beacon'd target for full amount, regardless of how much healing went to the primary target, it's much more useful now.

Redcape · 09/11/08, 12:16 PM

Numbers time.

I redid my ret dps spreadsheet to account for the changes to the seals and the tree mixup in Prot and Ret. One thing to note is that the dps decrease in Judgements and SoR and SoV that the patch talked about were implemented prior, they are just now acknowledging their previous nerfs.

SoB/SoV/SoR end up very tight on my sheet, minimal differences. You do need 5 points in Seals of the Pure to achieve this parity though, which is impactful. I tend to think that for raiding you would be better off using SoV/SoR anyway to avoid the damage recoil (since our mana situation is now entirely sustainable ++) but it will depend on how JoL, IlotP, etc. shake out compared to our self damage, we may not need any outside healing at all. Anyway, here is the sheet:

Spreadsheet

I think I have made every correction for the new build, but if you see anything I have missed please do point it out.

Also, with our new massive mana surplus it might be time to try to model SoV/So?? twisting again. We should have the GCDs to do so and it would increase damage substantially I think.

Thorgred · 09/11/08, 12:25 PM

Two things i'm wondering about possible prot rotations:

1) the +2 secs on Consecrate glyph. Interesting for mana saving... possible to change the rotation to fit?

2) Seal twisting. Whilst SoV is higher DPS generally than SoR, on certain situations it could be useful to build a SoV stack on the mob(s) and then alternate some Hammer/Shield of the Righteousess with resealing: gain on autoattacks, reckoning and procs off Hammer/Shield. I just have no idea how to model that sort of wierd switching.