The ultra-high mana costs lead me to believe that there's a rather large overhaul on paladin mana regeneration/efficiency mechanics in the works.
Just give me all of the bacon and eggs you have. Wait, wait, I worry what you just heard was, “Give me a lot of bacon and eggs.” What I said was, “Give me ALL the bacon and eggs you have.” Do you understand?
The activated AoE is awesome. Looks pricy mana-wise, but awesome. Haste is also a definite draw. Utility? Judging from 30 yards, I can see, but what other types of utility are you talking about?
First and foremost the traditional spec had 6% more spell haste and an AoE HoT that the Sheathbot does not. As we don't know the exact power of BoL yet it's hard to say, though if it gets the same sort of coefficients as other HoT spells (100% over duration) it will be very powerful in many situations.
By going down prot for the Traditional build you gain Blessing of Kings (honestly, why isn't this baseline yet?), reduced incoming damage from Improved Righteous Fury, improvements for 2 very powerful Hand spells, 3% more raid healing and extra tank mitigation from Improved Devotion Aura and a 5 minute cooldown raid Pain Supression in Divine Guardian.
For the sheathbot spec you gain cheaper seals and judgements (good synergy with Enlightened Judgement), Improved Blessing of Might which is always nice to have, 3% raid crit from Heart of the Crusader, 2% raid damage from Sanctified Retribution, 5% additional healing crit from Conviction and an on-crit HoT.
Both have their strengths and weaknesses. Sheathbots bring nothing additional to a raid if there is a ret pally there who will be picking up most of the additional utility talents. For this reason I could see Sheathbot being a small group healing spec especially useful for 10 mans, bringing extra DPS utility. I'm willing to bet the traditional spec will still reign supreme in large raids as I'm pretty sure almost everyone is going to run with a ret pally though.
It's really interesting though, this reminds me so much of the CoH/IDS split for priests. One build brings less healing utility but increased raid utility (IDS) while the other brings more raw throughput (CoH).
I was a big fan of sheath a few pages back, but the more i think of beacon, and it's power once spellpower etc is applied compared to CoH or Flourish which only effect 5 people. In SWP, beacon + divine guardian would just be immense
Let's say a 10 minute fight with a weapon with a 3.6 weapon speed, assume hit and expertise capped assume always in melee range always hitting, assume no cooldowns are messing up with eachother (which they actually will) assuming wisdom = 50% procchance.
Level 70 raid with WotLK talents
10 min = 600 seconds
167 white swings
100 CS
75 judgement
60 divine storm
70 Seal of command procs
236*74 = 17464 mana from JoW + X(judgement of the wise) =17464 +X total mana gained
100*(0.08*base mana pool) = 23360
75 *(0.05*base*0.85+280*0.85) = 27157.5
60 *(0.12*base) = 21024
total mana consumption of 71541.5
17464 + X = 71541.5
X = 54077.5
54077.5 = 0.2*overal Judgement damage
Damage done by 75 judgements = 270387.5
Damage done by 1 judgement = 3605,1667(every 8 seconds)
or 3605,1667 / 8 = 450.65 dps
Point is, when not hit/expertise capped the mana gained from JoW is decreased, when vindication is factored in it's mana will increase, when cooldowns start overlapping (6 sec CS and 10 sec DSt will overlap) mana comsumption will decrease.
Of course there is then the fact that we're unsure if judgement of the wise will always restore your own mana.
Edit: redone all calculation with real base mana and 20% of JotW instead of 60%
Can conclude that that will be a problem, however in high end kit judgement dps can go quite high with all it's modefiers.
Still I calculated how much mana JotW must return to end the fight with a full mana pool, which means there can still 4k be substracted depending on gear, buffs and mana regen from other sources(shadow priest, mana tide totem etc)
First and foremost the traditional spec had 6% more spell haste and an AoE HoT that the Sheathbot does not. As we don't know the exact power of BoL yet it's hard to say, though if it gets the same sort of coefficients as other HoT spells (100% over duration) it will be very powerful in many situations.
By going down prot for the Traditional build you gain Blessing of Kings (honestly, why isn't this baseline yet?), reduced incoming damage from Improved Righteous Fury, improvements for 2 very powerful Hand spells, 3% more raid healing and extra tank mitigation from Improved Devotion Aura and a 5 minute cooldown raid Pain Supression in Divine Guardian.
For the sheathbot spec you gain cheaper seals and judgements (good synergy with Enlightened Judgement), Improved Blessing of Might which is always nice to have, 3% raid crit from Heart of the Crusader, 2% raid damage from Sanctified Retribution, 5% additional healing crit from Conviction and an on-crit HoT.
Both have their strengths and weaknesses. Sheathbots bring nothing additional to a raid if there is a ret pally there who will be picking up most of the additional utility talents. For this reason I could see Sheathbot being a small group healing spec especially useful for 10 mans, bringing extra DPS utility. I'm willing to bet the traditional spec will still reign supreme in large raids as I'm pretty sure almost everyone is going to run with a ret pally though.
It's really interesting though, this reminds me so much of the CoH/IDS split for priests. One build brings less healing utility but increased raid utility (IDS) while the other brings more raw throughput (CoH).
I hear you on Kings. I haven't commented yet on Improved Devotion Aura because, frankly, I'm not sure whether that's something Prot builds would be looking to pick up. I was mostly running under the assumption that, for the most part in a raid, you're running Imp Conc. Even if there's not a silence effect, the boomkin and shadow priests have more pushback resist.
I can't believe that Divine Guardian will remain the way it is until launch, though. That's neither here nor there, and it only in the most tangential way affects the Beacon build, but I can bet you anything that it'll be, at least, nerfed to like 10% or something.
On a separate note, if downranking mechanics don't get changed too drastically (which I'm not expecting at all), then Beacon of Light 3 might be more affordable and believable. (1040 mana for 1280 healing per person). If it's 2000 spellpower (and even then, they said they were changing coefficients, most likely boosting it), then it *might* be something like 1040 mana for 3280 healing per person, which is pretty mana efficient.
However, knowing that they're changing coefficients (because there's less spellpower than +healing on items) and there was mention about nerfing downranking again, I would take that with a very large grain of salt.
Even then, it should give you a basic hint as to what's possible.
P.S.: I felt the same way, about CoH/IDS vs. Beacon/Sheath
(Beacon/Sheath... why am I suddenly hungry?)
Edit: Sheathe is the verb, Sheath is the noun. Must remember... must remember...
Does the target get the HoT also (I assume yes but who knows)?
Do you lose the HoT if you go out of Range of the Beacon after it has been cast?
If a second Beacon is cast on another player does the new HoT overwrite the old (starting a new timer)?
Does the target get the HoT also (I assume yes but who knows)?
Do you lose the HoT if you go out of Range of the Beacon after it has been cast?
If a second Beacon is cast on another player does the new HoT overwrite the old (starting a new timer)?
Most likely this is what happens.
Holy Paladin casts Beacon of Light.
Warrior gains Beacon of Light (buff). Only the melee group is within 10 yards of him.
Melee group gains 400 health
3 seconds pass
Melee group gains 400 health
3 seconds pass
Melee group gains 400 health
The rogue in the melee group 'tards out and chills with the casters.
3 seconds pass
Melee group (minus rogue) gains 400 health
Rogue joins back in
3 seconds pass
Melee group (with rogue) gains 400 health
Warrior loses Beacon of Light (buff).
As to the third question, since the tooltip says "*a* Beacon of Light", and doesn't specifically mention only having a specific number at a time like other tooltips, I'd say you can have it on multiple people, but probably not twice on the same person.
I'd say it's something like Seed of Corruption, only it doesn't explode, it heals.
I've just run the numbers. Mana problems should be pretty moot on a couple of conditions:
- Every Judgement of the wise returns mana to yourself
- Judgement does an avarage damage of 1021,9 (or 127,74 dps with 2/2 improved)
let's say a 10 minute fight with a weapon with a 3.6 weapon speed, assume hit and expertise capped assume always in melee range always hitting, assume no cooldowns are messing up with eachother (which they actually will) assuming wisdom = 50% procchance.
Level 70 raid with WotLK talents
10 min = 600 seconds
167 white swings
100 CS
75 judgement
60 divine storm
70 Seal of command procs
236*74 = 17464 mana from JoW + X(judgement of the wise) =17464 +X total mana gained
100*(0.08*base mana pool) = 19840
75 *(0.05*base*0.85+280*0.85) = 25755
60 *(0.12*base) = 17856
total mana consumption of 63451
17464 + X = 63451
X = 45987
45987 = 0.6*overal Judgement damage
Damage done by 75 judgements = 76645
Damage done by 1 judgement = 1021,933 (every 8 seconds)
or 1021,933 / 8 = 127,74 dps
Point is, when not hit/expertise capped the mana gained from JoW is decreased, when vindication is factored in it's mana will increase, when cooldowns start overlapping (6 sec CS and 10 sec DSt will overlap) mana comsumption will decrease.
Of course there is then the fact that we're unsure if judgement of the wise will always restore your own mana.
What value for base mana have you used. It seems like you have used about 2400. I thought it was about 3900 at level 70, and guessing it will be more at level 80
Also, i believe that judgement of the wise will be 60% mana split over all people not 60% per person
If you re-factor these two in I think mana might become an issue
I have fixed it now, you'll need judgement to do 451 dps to end the battle with the same mana you started with the assumptions made.
Thing is, I did not factor in a lot of things, like mana usage by Avenging wrath/divine shield, hands.
Nor did I factor in mana potion usage and mana gained from other sources.
Has anyone figured out if there is a duration on the Instant Cast Holy Light buff from Crit Holy Shocks yet?
If it doesn't have a duration and is simply next Holy Light cast, instead of weaving Holy Lights in with Flash of Light rotation Pally's may keep the Instant Cast Holy Light buff active and just sit on it until its needed, so essentially we have a Nature's Swiftness on a shorter cooldown.
Has anyone figured out if there is a duration on the Instant Cast Holy Light buff from Crit Holy Shocks yet?
If it doesn't have a duration and is simply next Holy Light cast, instead of weaving Holy Lights in with Flash of Light rotation Pally's may keep the Instant Cast Holy Light buff active and just sit on it until its needed, so essentially we have a Nature's Swiftness on a shorter cooldown.
-Use Avenging Wrath for the large amount of extra healing
-Use Divine Illumination
-Divine Shield to gain the 30% damage reduction
-Pop Beacons on 5 people (assuming more then one can be ticking on anyone at a time)
And win!
AoE healing fights. Finally, we are useful for them.
Also on top of the fact that you can have a nice instant cast Holy Light ready for the tank at any time during this AoE healing, since the crit buff from critting a Holy Shock doesn't have a buff duration. Seems like it'll stay up on you till used.
Does anybody know if there is a crit component to Beacon of Light? It would be pretty un-Paladiny if it couldn't crit in some way.
It's a hot. Hot's can't crit.
Originally Posted by Bulgarth
Also on top of the fact that you can have a nice instant cast Holy Light ready for the tank at any time during this AoE healing, since the crit buff from critting a Holy Shock doesn't have a buff duration. Seems like it'll stay up on you till used.
Beacon can be a pulsing effect instead of a traditional HoT. It could go either way.
So, about that whole Divine Guardian thing, and about that other whole Sanctified Wrath thing. There is currently precedent for player abilities that can bypass defensive absorb effects and immunities. Behold Chaos Bolt, the warlock 51-point destro talent, which seems to have lost that effect from its tooltip but still retains the effect. Based on this, I would expect the following: Sanctified Wrath allows half your damage to go through absorb and immune effects and resistances, as well as possibly %-based defenses like spell warding and defensive stance. Its behavoir with armor is unknown, as chaos bolt is a spell, and while I expect it to work with effects like Soul Link, Spirit Link, and Cheat Death which register as Absorb in the combat log, this is untested. Also, Divine Guardian redirects the damage to you, and applies that damage as normal to your bubble. So if the damage is normally capable of piercing bubbles, like Chaos Bolt or Sanctified Wrath, you eat it, otherwise you are immune as normal.
As a side note: I find it amusing that holy paladins have gone from the least mobile healer in the game to the de-facto on-the-move direct-heals healer.
Sheathbot sounds great for leveling and beginning of 80, since you can heal any 5-man fine with it and then still do decent solo damage. Holy Shock will have a 6 second cooldown, so that helps with solo dps, along with the new Judgement of Wisdom (when you judge Righteousness, you get the normal JoR damage, and puts up the Wisdom judgement).
Once your raid gets the Ret Pally, then the utility is gone, but before then it sounds promising.
Beacon can be a pulsing effect instead of a traditional HoT. It could go either way.
In retrospect, I'm thinking it'll probably work more like this as well. At first, I was thinking that it would function something like Flourish, but upon reviewing it, and realizing that it has a cap, I figured that it would be a lot, lot easier to code if it was something of a pulsing effect.
So, I have a feeling it can either be something like a healing Consecrate (although the "makes a target a beacon of light" implies a buff being applied to a singular target, and movable with the target, and not basically an area of effect on the ground) which implies no crit chance, or it can be something akin to a Holy Nova being spewed forth from the buffed target every probable 3 seconds or so, which could crit.
Is it? Can't they? Don't use Burning Crusade rules for a Lich King spell. I imagine it could be like Mana Tide totem with each pulse having a chance to crit.
The Sheath spec is a bit more powerful than has been mentioned so far. Without Blessing of Light or Salvation, Paladins will take Wisdom, Kings, and Might (with 3 paladins in the raid) this gives an additional 300 * 1.2 = 360 Attack Power for a Holy Paladin, or 360 * .3 = 108 spell power. Not too shabby.