Altirias

If we consider Wowhead's coefficients, we get quite different numbers for SoC & SoB :
(same stats considered, 138 dps weapon, 3K AP (so 900 SP)

SoC : MW * 70% = 1233 * 70 % = 863 @ 7PPM : 101 dps
JoC : MW * 30% + 36% AP + 58% SP = 1972 @ 8sec cd : 246 dps
--> 347 dps for SoC

SOB / Martyr
SoB / SoM stays the same, 432 per hit => 123 dps
JoB / JoM : MW * 45% + 36% * AP + 58% * SP => 2157 per hit @ 8 sec cd : 270 dps
--> 393 dps for SoB / SoM

But Still, SoB / SoM and SoC still stand behind SoR when not factoring crits (and not even considering Seals of the pure)

I'd like to try to factor crit in order to get a fairer image of the dps potential in our offensive seals.
I'm considering 30% mele and spell crit for simplification (provided we don't have that much crit from agi on our stuff, spell & melee crit will be very close). I'm also assuming hit and expertise - capped. As every seal / judgement crit for *2 damage, I'm considering that 1% crit is 1% more damage, and I'm counting the 25% crit to judgements from fanaticsm.

so we have :

SoC : 131 dps
JoC : 382 dps
--> : 513 dps

SoB : 160 dps
JoB : 418 dps
--> : 578 dps

SoR : 240 dps
JoR : 389 dps
--> : 629 dps

Did I miss something in the crit factoring calculation ? Please correct me if I did.

So, when factoring crit, the gap is not that big, but still in favor of SoR.
I feel a bit disappointed by it.

EDIT : I computed this calculations with a more humble set of equipment and weapons. It seems that the most AP you get, the bigger the gap is between SoR and SoB (they're pretty close with 2K AP and a 120 dps weapon)

When I get home, I'll try to factor haste for a SoB / SoR comparison, I feel it might make a difference in favour of Blood.
A question though : anybody know how haste and PPM are actually handled ? Is it like the more haste you have, the less proc per hit you get or is balanced anyhow to account for the attack speed increase ?

 

flyingtoastr

Just looked at Hammer of Wrath .

Apparently it now not only gets a spell power bonus but also an AP one. So assuming a ret pally with only 3000 attack power (1000 spell power) you'd be looking at a baseline of 1739 to 1827 damage. Factor in percentage multipliers (Sanctified Retribution, Crusade, Vengeance x3) and you're looking at an average baseline of 2154 damage. With an 85% crit rate you're looking at a total average damage of something like 3985 damage. Using it every cooldown is a nice ~660 DPS boost whenever a boss goes under 35% health.

The short of it; Hammer of Wrath is kickass now.

Incidentally my old friend Exorcism is also getting an AP component.

The more haste you have the less percent chance each hit will proc the effect but the actual PPM will remain the same.

In simpler terms, the number of procs per minute will always remain static regardless of speed. More haste = more white attacks, but since there are the same number of procs there is a lower percentage of the total hits proccing.

Some people's minds are like cement: all mixed up and permanently set.

 

GSH

Don't SoB and SoC get a double boost from Vengeance, since it increases both physical and holy damage? That's the only bonus I can think of that doesn't apply to SoR.

 

flyingtoastr

Vengeance applies as a percentage multiplier after base damage is calculated. It doesn't actually increase your paperdoll swing damage so it wouldn't affect SoB double (unless something about percentage modifiers has drastically changed in the latest build). You will simply get the 15% increase to the Holy Damage dealt.

Some people's minds are like cement: all mixed up and permanently set.

 

jere

That is my understanding of it as well. The reason I felt it pertinent though was that being not normalized more heavily favors a slow weapon. If it does become normalize, it would take some of the hurt off of picking a faster weapon and open our weapon choices up some (maybe). Slow weapons would still be better in that scenario, but if I understand it correctly (I may not), then picking a faster weapon wouldn't be drastically different since the AP contribution would dilute the base weapon damage contribution faster than if it wasn't normalized. Does that make sense? I know I could be off in left field though.

 

JettJaguar

SoB, SoC and SoR deal exclusively Holy damage.

 

Septus

Is this for haste only? I thought proc per minute rates would functionally be translated into a percent per hit based on your weapon's standard speed, and would then result in more actual procs per minute if, say, you're a warrior and have flurry to modify your attack speed.

 

flyingtoastr

Extensive testing with Seal of Command has shown (relatively definitively) that the percent chance to proc for a PPM is determined by your hasted weapon speed while the PPM itself remains static.

For example, with a 3.8 speed weapon with Seal of Command (7 PPM) I have a 44.3% chance on each hit for Seal of Command to proc ( 7 procs per minute / 15.78937 attacks per minute ).

With enough haste to bring it down to a 3.0 speed I now have only a 35% chance to proc Seal of Command on each swing ( 7 procs per minute / 20 attacks per minute ).

This is the reason why so many alliance pallys whine about the Sunwell gear that is dripping with haste.

Some people's minds are like cement: all mixed up and permanently set.

 

◊ Oggie

This got changed some time ago- 2.1ish? There's a testing thread on it somewhere on here.

I think that saying 'normalization favors slower weapons' is highly misleading. Yes, it's true that there's some 'free' damage stuck in there, but by any reasonable standard it should be so overshadowed that it's pointless to discuss it- unless you're dealing with excessive multipliers (rogues with daggers) or are using that ability an excessive amount on short cooldowns (rogues again, this time with swords). For example, with the 1h I'm running around with on beta right now we're talking a whopping 11 damage difference.

edit:
Also, I'm not entirely sure why it's highly relivant re: haste and PPM. The primary PVE dps seal is and will continue to be Blood (Martyr) so finally pallies of both factions are free from their dependance upon foreign oil...wait, weapon speed.

 

• frmorrison

PPM for SoC means over time you will get seven procs in one minute, whether you are using a 8.0 speed weapon or 1.0 speed weapon. The only change to SoC's PPM is Windfury (in TBC) however that should be going away with Wrath's Windfury.


Even with normalization of attacks, you want the slowest weapon because abilities scale with weapon damage. Note there are exceptions, like with Seal of Blood where a 3.5 138 dps weapon is better than a 3.8 130 dps weapon.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

◊ Cathela

Ah. I was using Coriel's old testing numbers. Looks like the coefficients have changed, so I'll work on fixing the OP.

Yes, that's exactly the effect. The higher your AP relative to your weapon dps, the more important AP scaling becomes and the less important weapon scaling is. Typically the balance is about even between both factors at the blue gear level, and then as you gear up in TBC it swings towards AP. If weapon dps goes up faster than AP in WotLK, then perhaps none of this will be an issue.

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

 

flyingtoastr

Blood still does factor in weapon speed to a fair amount, as it is a non-normalized ability (slower weapon = more AP contribution). However due to Blood hitting on every attack it is much less of an issue than for Seal of Command.

Regardless, SoR is the current DPS seal (/slash wrists) of choice which is also dependant on weapon speed in a slightly different fashion (slower weapon = larger percentage multiplier) so I wouldn't say that weapon speed woes are a thing of the past yet.

I was thinking about while raiding last night though. If they simply switched the Weapon Speed Multiplier to a smaller coefficient (even as small of a change as .7 * Weapon Speed) it would work out so much nicer for everyone. Prot would still have a very nice TPS seal and Ret Pallys wouldn't be stuck using their level 1 seal for the rest of the game.

Some people's minds are like cement: all mixed up and permanently set.

 

• Chicken

It makes the difference smaller yes, but the difference is still there. If we compare a 100 DPS 1.6 speed weapon to a 100 DPS 2.6 speed weapon there's a different of 100 damage per hit, which is a noticable difference as it translates directly to 100 more damage per Hammer of the Righteous, or a 16.6 increase to it's single target DPS. This difference also gets larger as weapon DPS gets higher, a 130 DPS 2.6 speed weapon gains 130 damage per hit over a 130 DPS 1.6 speed weapon, changing the Hammer of the Righteous DPS difference between these two weapons to 21.6 DPS.

Depending on other developments like what kind of attack power we can expect to get and what the exact "High Threat" mechanic of Hammer of the Righteous is the impact this makes definitely varies however.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

Smurrf

And the tanks. Agreed, the shammies/druids (except for bear and enhancement) only need 2 each, but if you're going to have 3, then the benefit of not having to worry about 10's has it's own perks. Still, throwing in tanks pushes it up to around 1/3rd of the raid who having three is good for. Sanctuary, while not fantastic, is still better than not having it at all. If it wasn't, why would tanks get Thorns from Druids?

Aside from quibbling over blessings though, I think with the number of healers a raid can reasonably expect to bring, as well as desired diversification of tanks, one way or another 3 paladins can find their way into most raids. While you're not bringing paladins specifically for blessings now, they're going to provide enough other benefits that it won't be a wasted slot.

___


I do think that BoSanc needs to be made baseline, though, the more I look at it, and compare its cost to Kings. It's hard to justify picking it up for a Prot spec, and forcing someone else to spec Kings just so they can buff at most four classes with it. I can very easily see Kings being pushed up further into the tree, though, if that happens.

 

Altirias

I don't know if SoR should be nerfed or if SoC / SoB should be improved, but you get my point. It's kinda sad to buy spells you won't use because they provide less dps than your first ever seal you play with in kindergarden.

Balancing the scaling of seals (and furthermore dps scaling) around both AP and weapon damage is a good thing. I wouldn't like to be forced to have bad dps if I don't get the ultimate weapon of the tier I'm raiding to. I don't say that melees shouldn't be dependant on weapon damage, but there's a medium point to figure out, si if all your gear is good you don't suck dps-wise just because you don't have THE weapon. Dps scalability relying too much on 1 slot over the 16 we can fill is not a good thing

We will probably be able to craft decent weapons with blacksmithing but then again, there's a balance to find between it's too easy to scale up, or it's too random and if you don't get lucky enough you'll won't scale at all

Pardon me if I'm not quite clear enough, it's been a long day at work.

And to finish off, I don't think haste will help at all in the SoR vs SoB / SoC comparison since this would only rule SoC out and not give any edge to the "ret physical" seals.

 

GSH

"Non-normalized" doesn't apply to Blood in that sense. Blood is a constant-DPS seal, as is SoR. A slower weapon has a larger AP contribution, but that's cancelled out by the weapon speed. The AP-per-second contribution is constant.

So weapon speed doesn't matter except for the Judgement effect of Blood. There a slow weapon will do more DPS.

My personal feeling is that SoC and SoB are balanced nicely against each other. SoC is slightly behind SoB for overall dps, but SoB does damage to you, which is both drawback and benefit (via Spiritual Attunement). SoC is also bursty, especially with the current Judgement. There are situations where I would use SoC over SoB, and vice versa. To me, that's good design.

 

flyingtoastr

Finally got some numbers for this.

Divine Storm costs 659 mana at level 72. From this we can extrapolate that a Paladin's base mana at level 72 is roughly 3295 (DS is 20% of base mana). Right now a level 70 Paladin has a base mana pool of about 2953. Assuming it scales linearly that would give the equation for base mana pools between 70-80 a slope of 171 (this is noticibly higher than the slope of ~42 between levels 1-70, going along with the Wrath idea of higher mana costs for abilities it would seem). From this we can determine that the base mana pool of a Paladin is going to be 4663 at level 80.

If this is correct (and I strongly emphasize the "if") it would mean mana costs like nyah at 80:
Divine Storm: 932
Seals: 652
Judgements: 223

Of course I could be totally wrong and it could scale logarithmically or something whack. If anyone (not at level 72) could list some % of base mana ability costs at their level it would be superb.

IIRC AP contribution is based on a weapons base speed, not hasted, so you would want a slower weapon with haste instead of a fast weapon if you were in a high-haste situation. I could be thinking of something else though.

Regardless, weapon speed isn't as important to Blood, but it is still a factor.

Some people's minds are like cement: all mixed up and permanently set.

 

Denogran

Personally I think it needs to be the other way around, only Sanctuary really needs to be buffed - perhaps even modified for druid/dk tanks who don't block.

Right now Blessing of Sanctuary is nigh useless, and in certain situations even harmful as it's a wasted buff slot.

Kings on the other hand is so useful that a pally must have it for any raid, regardless of spec. I can't think of another talented buff like that in game (spirit comes close but isn't nearly as useful ).

 

Smurrf

I originally thought that as well, but almost universal reaction has been 'Kings will never go baseline.' I'll amend it to 'either Kings or Sanctuary' needs to go baseline, though.

 

Dekkar

If that is indeed correct, there is a strong implication for prot paladins to no longer take Benediction, but instead favour Improved Blessing of Might. This is due to seals lasting 2 minutes, so the need to frequently reseal is gone. Even judging every 10 seconds, a prot paladin would only be saving 200.7+48.9 = 249.6 mana/minute every minute under the (possibly poor) assumption that he kept the same seal up. That seems like a rather poor return for 5 talent points if you're going for Deflection.

Calculations: Judgement -> 233*0.15*10 = 200.7 mana saved per minute
....Seal of Righteousness -> 652.4*0.15*(1/2) = 48.9 mana saved per minute

It's no stretch to imagine a prot paladin offering Kings or Improved Blessing of Might if there's a retribution or holy paladin missing from the raid. In fact, I would venture to say that a sheath holy paladin or a BoL holy paladin could work well with that type of prot spec, since the sheath pally would offer Imp. Might while the prot buffed Kings, or the BoL paladin would buff Kings while the Prot Paladin buffed Imp. Might.

In this light, Benediction only seems useful if you plan on 'twisting' seals (which may very well be the case for ret).

 

sokie

Will a ret pally have the mana to spam Hammer of Wrath on cooldown for the amount of time a boss is likely to spend below 35% though? Rank 6 is shown as 615 mana on Wowhead right now, which comes out to 512.5 mana/5 to cast it every 6 seconds. Also, the DPS rotations I've seen in the ret thread seemed pretty tight, so I'm not sure we could slip in another GCD every 6 seconds without sacrificing something else.

Still looks like it is getting a pretty nice bump though which is certainly welcome.

 

Exemplar

Is this modeled with or without Seals of the Pure? If it's without, then wouldn't SoR pull ahead further?
SoR : 240 * 1.15 = 276 dps
JoR : 389 * 1.15 = 447 dps
--> : 629 * 1.15 = 723 dps

15% is 15% is 15%. That will scale insanely. At least it isn't faction/race specific. Sounds like they should give it additional threat (great for Prot), reduce its output, or buff our other seals.

 

Rasputin

If I could toss in a concept from my old class, the warlock, look at damage/cast time. HoW is a .5s cast that triggers a .5s GCD. If you are faced with a choice where a boss is at 34% or less and CS, DS, and HoW are all coming off cooldown, which will be a better use of your time? HoW will be nearly 4k damage on average(using toastr's calcs) and only use .5s of your time. Judgement, CS and DS will each use 3 times that much of your time, and so would need to average 3 times as much damage to be more useful in a situation in which each ability is up. I don't think Judgement, DS or CS will be averaging 12k damage, which would make HoW your chosen primary ability below 35%, mana permitting. Now as to whether we'll have the mana, that depends largely on our still-muddy longevity, riding mostly on the intended spread of mana from JotW.

 

◊ Cathela

That's a good point I hadn't thought of. The weapon itself is already extremely important, and making it more so probably isn't a good idea.

How far can the AP scaling of SoR/JoR be nerfed without negatively impacting leveling?

I think with judicious use of Divine Plea it ought to be doable on most bosses.

--

Also, as far as the stacking of WF and Swift Retribution, I noticed that Judgements of the Pure reads "Your Judgement spells increase your casting and melee haste by..." whereas Swift Retribution says "Your Retribution Aura also increases casting, melee, and ranged attack speeds by..."

I wonder if this is maybe an intentional difference in language to emphasize that SR is not a haste effect per se, and will therefore stack with WF. (Or I could be just reading too much into this.)

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

 

sokie

Yeah, my only real issue was the idea that it would be a flat 660 DPS boost which doesn't seem likely. That implies using it immediately every cooldown and no loss of DPS from your regular cycle. It will be a DPS boost, just a question of how much and how long the boost can be sustained. I'm excited to find out though.