WotLK talent trees/abilities discussion - Page 86

Lurker37 · 08/14/08, 3:05 AM

Originally Posted by Cathela

Other spells follow the same pattern. It's like they wanted to give them uniform mana costs but they screwed up the last couple ranks or something.

Apparently it's deliberate.
Blue post on live forums: (emphasis mine)

This is not a bug.

In the latest WotLK beta push, we made a large change to the mana cost of spells. All player spells now cost a percentage of base mana rather than a fixed cost. Base mana is a special value determined by the player’s level and class, regardless of any effects or items that increase intellect. It is the size of a player’s mana pool if the player has zero intellect.

This change was made primarily to prevent downranking, as it's a technique that was never quite intended. Rather than continue to find ways to penalize players for casting low-rank spells, we decided to essentially make doing so obsolete. If rank 5 and rank 6 of a spell cost the same amount of mana, but rank 6 does more damage/healing, then there is no reason to consider casting rank 5.

So, each spell line (eg. Frostbolt, Shadowbolt, Greater Heal, Rejuvenation, etc.) has a fixed percentage of base mana that it costs for most of its ranks. That means each time a player gains a level the cost will go up some. The percentages were picked to attempt to keep the costs relatively similar to what they are currently in World of Warcraft. For most spells, that percentage will drop some when the player receives their highest-rank spell in existing Burning Crusade content. This was done to better fit the existing cost curve, and to keep the mana cost for level 70 players as close as possible to existing costs. Level 70 characters will see most of their maximum rank spells change in cost slightly up or down, but not by significant amounts.

We anticipate there being some balance concerns due to this change, and our development staff will be ready to implement new spells, abilities, or talents to resolve those issues as the testing process continues.

DarKNecross · 08/14/08, 3:19 AM

What I don't understand is, if they want to remove Downranking, why not remove lower ranks of spells when a higher rank is learned? It's the same thing that happens with Rogues/Warriors. Why go through the trouble of increasing the mana cost on all previous spells?

Prinsesa · 08/14/08, 3:33 AM

Originally Posted by DarKNecross

What I don't understand is, if they want to remove Downranking, why not remove lower ranks of spells when a higher rank is learned? It's the same thing that happens with Rogues/Warriors. Why go through the trouble of increasing the mana cost on all previous spells?

Ostensibly because there's still some value in a rank 1 Frostbolt for the snare. Yes, it'll cost a ton, but it'll also cast much faster, which may be situationally better depending on how much time you think you have to cast it.

I'm sure there's more out there, but suffice it to say removing old spell ranks completely would have a non-trivial effect.

• Avitus · 08/14/08, 5:14 AM

While that's true Prinsesa, it wouldn't be too hard to remove them for classes that don't actually have shorter cast times on lower ranks (like us paladins).

On the flipside, there's a "show only highest rank" check mark in your spellbook now in WotLK to filter out all the now obsolete spells. (Edit: Seems that was changed to "show all ranks" and default is off in the latest beta build).

Note for ret paladins: No more Consecration downranking ;/

Veneda · 08/14/08, 7:23 AM

Originally Posted by Avitus

Note for ret paladins: No more Consecration downranking ;/

With 2 min. seals, scaling JoW, Judgements of the Wise and CS getting cheap (and tons of spellpower from SoL to boost consecration) scaling it down shouldn't be needed anyway. Only significant mana dump now that can be a competition for Consecration is Divine Storm.

Ans since we are at mana issue - did anyone with beta access made a test how long it takes to get OOM with various damage rotations?

Noctivagant · 08/14/08, 9:04 AM

Originally Posted by Veneda

With 2 min. seals, scaling JoW, Judgements of the Wise and CS getting cheap (and tons of spellpower from SoL to boost consecration) scaling it down shouldn't be needed anyway. Only significant mana dump now that can be a competition for Consecration is Divine Storm.

Ans since we are at mana issue - did anyone with beta access made a test how long it takes to get OOM with various damage rotations?

As someone who PVP's primarily, if I can still lay down consecration patches for the "touch" effect, and not feel mana pressure, this change is low impact. Everything else ret related has turned into percent already.

However, for healers, isn't this going to lead to some overhealing inefficiency? I suppose questions to start with is who all is downranking, when are they doing it, and why?

watersrog · 08/14/08, 9:21 AM

Originally Posted by Noctivagant

However, for healers, isn't this going to lead to some overhealing inefficiency? I suppose questions to start with is who all is downranking, when are they doing it, and why?

That's a good question. I personally use Holy Light rank 9 for 70-80% of my heals, with the rest divided between Flash of Light and Holy Light rank 11. I guess right now we have to relay on Holy Shock crits for instant Holy Light and interrupt casting since the mana efficiency doesn't seem to be increased in any way.

Rudegirl · 08/14/08, 9:35 AM

Originally Posted by Noctivagant

However, for healers, isn't this going to lead to some overhealing inefficiency? I suppose questions to start with is who all is downranking, when are they doing it, and why?

It's not that big a change, for arenas people have to stop spamming rank 1 spells to get people out of stealth and so forth. For PvE, you'll just have to interrupt casts and land the ones that matter. Paladins should have it fairly easy, with the right specc/alot of critrating you could have almost every 2nd holy shock crit and give you an instant holy light - so i'd imagine you can afford falling a wee bit behind on the healing as opposed to downrank-spamming.

Krellian · 08/14/08, 9:57 AM

Originally Posted by Avitus

While that's true Prinsesa, it wouldn't be too hard to remove them for classes that don't actually have shorter cast times on lower ranks (like us paladins).

On the flipside, there's a "show only highest rank" check mark in your spellbook now in WotLK to filter out all the now obsolete spells. (Edit: Seems that was changed to "show all ranks" and default is off in the latest beta build).

Note for ret paladins: No more Consecration downranking ;/

oh man, that is going to hurt, didnt think about that. same for arcane explosion on mages. :/

Krellian · 08/14/08, 10:01 AM

Originally Posted by Noctivagant

As someone who PVP's primarily, if I can still lay down consecration patches for the "touch" effect, and not feel mana pressure, this change is low impact. Everything else ret related has turned into percent already.

However, for healers, isn't this going to lead to some overhealing inefficiency? I suppose questions to start with is who all is downranking, when are they doing it, and why?

well under the current design in BC, yes that would hit paladins the hardest, as we have no hots. So if we were forced to use HL 11 we'd be overhealing like crazy. when i was holy i used HL 4,8,11. Depedning on what was going on i found the benefit of keeping lights grace up all the time, and the additional crit of HL worked well.

however, with paladins getting some kinda reactive heal and the other changes, being foreced to use max rank heal only might not be as bad compared to the current system.

• Avitus · 08/14/08, 10:20 AM

Originally Posted by Veneda

With 2 min. seals, scaling JoW, Judgements of the Wise and CS getting cheap (and tons of spellpower from SoL to boost consecration) scaling it down shouldn't be needed anyway. Only significant mana dump now that can be a competition for Consecration is Divine Storm.

Ans since we are at mana issue - did anyone with beta access made a test how long it takes to get OOM with various damage rotations?

I know what we're getting, still you'll get less bang for your buck (mana) if you stagger max rank Consecration than spamming lower ranks. This is not a complaint however just a comment, I think they're going the right way.

How effective our mana regen in fights will be all depend on how JotW will turn out to work in a group/raid, so you can't really conclusively say anything at this point (keep in mind you can't spam mana pots anymore, so that is a hit).

To answer your question: While soloing you get the full benefit of JotW and the way judgement scale atm, you pretty much never run out of mana. It feels more like rage, you go in combat to use judgement on mobs to fill up your mana bar rapidly, you never really go oom.

Raids/groups however still remains to be seen as explained above.

Ardelia · 08/14/08, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by Noctivagant

However, for healers, isn't this going to lead to some overhealing inefficiency? I suppose questions to start with is who all is downranking, when are they doing it, and why?

For healing paladins, one of the most common uses for downranking is to select a downranked HL (generally rank 4 or 5) that does comparable healing to max-rank FoL and weave it in every 15 sec to keep HL cast time at 2.0 (so that if the wheels start to fall off, a max HL gets to the target faster). This change will affect that tactic, obviously, but will it be enough to matter?

Remember, you're essentially asking two different questions. Will this result in more overhealing? Yes. Will this result in overhealing inefficiency? Remember, overhealing is only a concern if that overhealing causes the healer to run OOM and be unable to continue the fight at a critical point; if the healer finishes the fight with mana left over and their assigned target alive, overheal is not a concern in and of itself.

I think it's far too early to be able to evaluate that question, as we don't yet have a good read on mana regen at the level 80 endgame.

Xterminate · 08/14/08, 10:29 AM

I do not believe this will have a major impact on PvE raiding. However, I would guess that holy arena paladins are not so lucky. Downranking is extremely effective, especially in outlast teams, and is something you will be doing regularly with rank 4-5 HL, perhaps other ranks as well.

Krellian · 08/14/08, 10:33 AM

Originally Posted by Xterminate

I do not believe this will have a major impact on PvE raiding. However, I would guess that holy arena paladins are not so lucky. Downranking is extremely effective, especially in outlast teams, and is something you will be doing regularly with rank 4-5 HL, perhaps other ranks as well.

I rarely, if ever, found downraking useful in arena. 95% of time you spend (as a a paladin) avoiding CC, so you end up having to throw a big heal to your partner who takes spike dmg or the sort. I (at least for me) was never able to really have the luxury of just standing out there shooting off DR'd heals. it was almost always, crap big heal time and hope you dont get CC'd.

levk · 08/14/08, 10:45 AM

Originally Posted by Ardelia

For healing paladins, one of the most common uses for downranking is to select a downranked HL (generally rank 4 or 5) that does comparable healing to max-rank FoL and weave it in every 15 sec to keep HL cast time at 2.0 (so that if the wheels start to fall off, a max HL gets to the target faster). This change will affect that tactic, obviously, but will it be enough to matter?

Remember, you're essentially asking two different questions. Will this result in more overhealing? Yes. Will this result in overhealing inefficiency? Remember, overhealing is only a concern if that overhealing causes the healer to run OOM and be unable to continue the fight at a critical point; if the healer finishes the fight with mana left over and their assigned target alive, overheal is not a concern in and of itself.

I think it's far too early to be able to evaluate that question, as we don't yet have a good read on mana regen at the level 80 endgame.

Weaving in low rank HL (like 4) to keep LG up is an obsolete tactic, You have instacast HL basically on demand with infusion of light. I really doubt you'd see this tactic again even if they didn't make this change.

Right now there's just two healing spells and there's a big difference between what max rank FoL heals and what max rank HL heals. To that end ranks 8-9 are very popular I think because it's the middle ground between them. Yes this is being taken away but your healing strategy changes a lot with FoL not being as efficient you'll be casting it far less, holy shock will occupy some of this ground, but being cooldown limited not all of it. The shield spell that you get at 80 will be the other part. Basically, prepare for quite an adjustment to heal again, it will be quite different at 80.

EDIT: Pvp nerf is to rank 1 consecration. I didn't even have higher ranks bound to a button, rank 1 to get stealthers or area denial to get out of combat for drink or mount, stuff like that. Healing is going to be an adjustment, it's too different to compare.

Krellian · 08/14/08, 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by levk

Weaving in low rank HL (like 4) to keep LG up is an obsolete tactic, You have instacast HL basically on demand with infusion of light. I really doubt you'd see this tactic again even if they didn't make this change.

Right now there's just two healing spells and there's a big difference between what max rank FoL heals and what max rank HL heals. To that end ranks 8-9 are very popular I think because it's the middle ground between them. Yes this is being taken away but your healing strategy changes a lot with FoL not being as efficient you'll be casting it far less, holy shock will occupy some of this ground, but being cooldown limited not all of it. The shield spell that you get at 80 will be the other part. Basically, prepare for quite an adjustment to heal again, it will be quite different at 80.

EDIT: Pvp nerf is to rank 1 consecration. I didn't even have higher ranks bound to a button, rank 1 to get stealthers or area denial to get out of combat for drink or mount, stuff like that. Healing is going to be an adjustment, it's too different to compare.

Do not forget that rank 1 is rather inneffective on a hunters snake trap. i keep rank 5 on my bar for the snake traps.

*edit: rank 1 vs. 5 as ret since it does so little

Pitbuller · 08/14/08, 10:56 AM

Blizzard could fic SoR if they added base damage * level and at same time lower attack power and maybe spell power co-efficient
If this:

[MWS * (0.05 * AP + 0.1 * SP)]

changed to this:

1.5 * level + [(0.025 * AP + 0.075 *SP) * MWS]

This change would make everybody happy.

levk · 08/14/08, 11:32 AM

Another thing about downranking is this change shifts gear priorities. People slap +22 healing gems on everything and are left with whatever base regen their gear has knowing that they'll be able to downrank and chainchug for longevity. Now if you want longevity you have to get longevity stats.

Hylo · 08/14/08, 11:48 AM

Originally Posted by Pitbuller

Blizzard could fic SoR if they added base damage * level and at same time lower attack power and maybe spell power co-efficient
If this:

[MWS * (0.05 * AP + 0.1 * SP)]

changed to this:

1.5 * level + [(0.025 * AP + 0.075 *SP) * MWS]

This change would make everybody happy.

It's not a bad formula to be honest. I inserted couple of "might be" numbers in it and the results were not that unreasonable.

Still the problem of prot threat scaling persist. Let's assume you have 2500 stamina and 1000 AP in mitigation gear. In threat gear you might want to drop the stamina to 2200 and gain 300 AP. Assuming 2.6 weapon speed:

2500 stamina (=750 SP) and 1000 AP: 331 dmg /swing
2200 stamina (=660 SP) and 1300 AP: 333 dmg /swing

These are totally arbitrary numbers but you can see that the AP-scaling is very weak.

◊ s4dfish · 08/14/08, 11:52 AM

I actually like the downranking change. That you could gear for more throughput and simply downrank to achieve longevity seemed silly. I like the concept of gearing for throughput or longevity, but not both at the same time.

Khaelarys · 08/14/08, 11:59 AM

Can any beta folks confirm that this patch note is correct?

Patch Notes

Stoicism (Protection) moved to tier 2, now reduces duration of Stun effects by 10/20/30% and reduces chance your spells will be resisted by 10/20/30%.

This used to be "... spells will be dispelled...". The MMO calculator has it at tier 2, but still uses the "dispelled" verbage.

◊ Cathela · 08/14/08, 12:06 PM

Originally Posted by Hylo

It's not a bad formula to be honest. I inserted couple of "might be" numbers in it and the results were not that unreasonable.

Still the problem of prot threat scaling persist. Let's assume you have 2500 stamina and 1000 AP in mitigation gear. In threat gear you might want to drop the stamina to 2200 and gain 300 AP. Assuming 2.6 weapon speed:

2500 stamina (=750 SP) and 1000 AP: 331 dmg /swing
2200 stamina (=660 SP) and 1300 AP: 333 dmg /swing

These are totally arbitrary numbers but you can see that the AP-scaling is very weak.

Well, itemization-wise, 300 stamina has the same value as 200 strength, so you'd be looking at something like gaining 400AP in that tradeoff, and hence 359 dmg/swing for the second case. You'd also be gaining more tps from ShR and HotR (if you're prot) since those don't have spellpower coefficients at all. So really, I think it would work fine.

And as long as it does scale, they can always tweak threat multipliers to make it scale the way they want it to.

Khaelarys · 08/14/08, 12:10 PM

Originally Posted by s4dfish

I actually like the downranking change. That you could gear for more throughput and simply downrank to achieve longevity seemed silly. I like the concept of gearing for throughput or longevity, but not both at the same time.

I'm okay with the change - mostly because I'm hoping there will more to differentiate skill level in the expansion than downranking. I do use down ranks for healing - but really I could do without it. Moonfire is where th break even point is for me. And at least it'll free up some buttons that I'll sorely need.

The thing that gets me is for Tanking. I'm trying to keep all of the new changes in mind (crushing, for instance), but I downrank a LOT when I tank. Consecration and especially Holy Shield - the highest rank is expensive when you don't need the threat bit. Sounds like we have plenty of toys in the expansion, and without crushing blows I might not even notice it. But just because I've tanked the same way for so long, I'm a little nervous.

• Avitus · 08/14/08, 12:15 PM

Originally Posted by Khaelarys

Can any beta folks confirm that this patch note is correct?

Patch Notes

Stoicism (Protection) moved to tier 2, now reduces duration of Stun effects by 10/20/30% and reduces chance your spells will be resisted by 10/20/30%.

This used to be "... spells will be dispelled...". The MMO calculator has it at tier 2, but still uses the "dispelled" verbage.

I'm on the beta right now and this is not in effect yet.

Assuming they will put it in "next" build, I guess this change is to avoid an overpowered Holy spec for arena with Blessend Hands + Stoicism giving 60% chance to resist dispelling of HoF/HoSac/HoP.

What a dumb way to change it though, this is a big hit for Ret Arena which will now have 0 chance to resist pruge/spellstealing our Hand spells (mainly freedom is the one I'm worried about). Typical to implement a new talent, then change the OLD talent since the new one made it overpowered...

On a PvE note, it's still to be determined (and correct me if I'm wrong) whether Judgements are still going to go off "spell hit" or "melee hit", so maybe this is to fill the gap once melee capped.

ZulazeeluIcecrown · 08/14/08, 12:16 PM

Originally Posted by Avitus

While that's true Prinsesa, it wouldn't be too hard to remove them for classes that don't actually have shorter cast times on lower ranks (like us paladins).

On the flipside, there's a "show only highest rank" check mark in your spellbook now in WotLK to filter out all the now obsolete spells. (Edit: Seems that was changed to "show all ranks" and default is off in the latest beta build).

Note for ret paladins: No more Consecration downranking ;/

The real reason is this: If they just removed the previous ranks from your spellbook, you wouldn't bother to train the new ranks! As long as you didn't train the new rank, you'd benefit from "downranking." The only way around that would be to take training skills completely out of the game and automatically "force" the new rank on you when you dinged.

So instead of doing that, they're just removing any benefit from downranking.