WotLK talent trees/abilities discussion - Page 99

Ivriniel · 08/05/08, 5:45 AM

Just a quick note on 1he spec, it's not 5% flat threat, it's prolly more due to RF holy dmg threat multiplier?
I don't have any wws at hand atm with a prot pallie tank, but a rough guess for myself tanking stuff like heroics most dmg I do as tank is holy. So 1he spec is more like a 7-9% threat tps boost? Unless i got it's mechanics totally wrong.

I agree with Aenae too that some seems a bit wrong with Judgment and seal scaling atm, a retadin getting so much better values than either a prot or holy seems wrong. I'd prefer it if prot and retri values would be about the same, but prot getting it from spelldmg and retri getting it from AP. (Buffing Touched by the Light could help with that).
Prot paladins being spelldmg based is part of their flavour imo, and it kinda makes me sad to see us depending so much on AP.

And I see i am not the only one who'd like it if they'd cut down some 5 pointers to 2-3 pointers.
Examples are Reckoning, Ardent Defender, Redoubt, 1He spec
Buffing some of the seemingly weaker talents like Spell Warding

And a request for the lucky ones with a beta key. How exactly is Divine Guardian working out?
That talent kinda scares me as i can see a paladin pop'ing Divine Protection in a emergency (ala shield wall) and then getting owned because all the raid dmg is redirected to him. Basically that talent has the potential to remove our "shield wall" in heavy aoe fights, which seems bit silly.

Nilaus · 08/05/08, 5:57 AM

Originally Posted by Xequecal

I'm having a hard time figuring out why any Paladin would NOT want to spec for Sheath of Light.

Take, for example, this spec.

I fully agree! I've been suggesting this on Maintankadin, but didn't exactly get the best comments.

The usefulness of this spec depends highly on how good HotR is, since that is the main point your will be missing with this spec. In WotLK I will definately try it at least for leveling, since the spelldamage will be really mad (30% of sta + 30% of AP)

I really don't see it as a 25 man progresssion main tank build, but more of a leveling and 5man instance tank with the ability to solo a bit as well.

The gear focus will be on strength and stamina, without HotR there is really no need for a big slow 1H weapon and the trend with spell damage weapons can actually continue. HotR and ShoR are both on a 6 sec timer so it doesn't leave much room for Judgement, Excorsism, Holy Wrath, Consecrate, panicking, Righteous Defense, Holy shield etc. So in the end I think I can live without the HotR.

Any actual Beta testers tested Prot+Sheath? It would be interesting to get some non-theoretical feedback.

This would be my spec for now, focusing a bit more on damaga output than on mitigating incoming damage:
WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Paladin -> Talent Calculator

Prinsesa · 08/05/08, 5:59 AM

Prot paladins being spelldmg based is part of their flavour imo, and it kinda makes me sad to see us depending so much on AP.

Even if we had enough spell damage from TBTL to provide all our threat needs, they NEED to make STR (and by extension AP) useful for us because they're not going to make a second set of tank gear just for Paladins, and we obviously don't want to be dragged down by a useless stat that's going to eat potentially a third of our item points.

Nilaus · 08/05/08, 6:02 AM

Originally Posted by Ivriniel

Just a quick note on 1he spec, it's not 5% flat threat, it's prolly more due to RF holy dmg threat multiplier?
I don't have any wws at hand atm with a prot pallie tank, but a rough guess for myself tanking stuff like heroics most dmg I do as tank is holy. So 1he spec is more like a 7-9% threat tps boost? Unless i got it's mechanics totally wrong.

+5% is +5%

100 holy damage * 1.90 Reghteous Fury = 190 Threat

100 holy damage * 1.05 1H spec 1.90 Reghteous Fury = 199.5 Threat

it is just the same 5% no matter how you go about calculating it

Ivriniel · 08/05/08, 6:28 AM

Originally Posted by Prinsesa

Even if we had enough spell damage from TBTL to provide all our threat needs, they NEED to make STR (and by extension AP) useful for us because they're not going to make a second set of tank gear just for Paladins, and we obviously don't want to be dragged down by a useless stat that's going to eat potentially a third of our item points.

I can agree with that to some point, but it's also why i don't understand why prot got a seemingly weak stam -> spellpower talent, while retri got such a strong one alot lower in the tree. (and yes comparing prot pala stam to retri ap values, makes it clear we'll gain alot less than retris).

Basically retri seems to scale so much better than prot atm?
All the numbers that i've seen in this threat indicate that AP > spelldmg for pretty much everything.

Maybe i am to much focused on the theme of the class and not the playability tough.

Lockdown · 08/05/08, 6:30 AM

Originally Posted by rozetta

I thought I'd just drop in my 2 cents about prot specs. To me, there seem to be a few, but one of the most solid ones looks to be:

WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Paladin -> Talent Calculator

- One Handed Weapon Spec is a talent I used to have points for, but with the suspected lessening on need for Consecrate Spam, I can't honestly justify the point expenditure anymore. It seems some of the new talents provide a better bang-for-the-buck in terms of threat generation. Anecdotally, I run with some pretty well geared DPS and I found that these points in the past were the difference between being able to hold aggro or not. But again, this was mostly picked up for it's boost to Consecrate. One Handed Weapon Spec needs improvement to be worth it. It's simply not worth 5 points in tier 6.

I dont think choosing 10% more SoR/SoV & JoR/JoV damage over 5% dmg to ALL skills is a smart choice, especially when thinking about HotR and ShotR. Taking both, the 15% to SoV/SoR and 5% and leaving out some mitigation skills sounds solid when you're out for a threat build though.

Considering the diminished value of judgements vs. single targets I would completely scrap impr. Judgement and Seals of the Pure, get impr. Devo for some improved utility with a specc like this:
WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Paladin -> Talent Calculator
This however depends on how good strength really scales for us in terms of threat and block value. If 15% str is not worth it you could easily pick up Spellwarding, PoJ or even Reckoning for some new flavor. I agree though that 30% mana cost decrease on AoE talents is really weak, considering your always full to the brim when tanking multiple mobs... Maybe it could be a slight convenience on chain pulls when your overgeared, who knows.

On a side note I'm pretty sure the spellpower conversion talents throughout the classes (think shaman, druid, etc.) will go though a second evaluation, leaving them with probably 15%. Looking at our holy guidance, which provides us with 35% dmg/heal conversion for intellect, we would now get a 35% spellpower conversion if my assumptions are right. Which basically means 35%spellDMG/70%heal.
Holy paladins running around with 1500ish spellpower and retri paladins running around with 1200ish spellpower, while enjoying 10k crits and an endless mana return through JotW simply cannot be intended.

Zed · 08/05/08, 6:49 AM

Prot Paladins and Block Value

Having a Paladin, the class that theoretically benefits most from consistently getting hit and blocking high amounts, especially early in an expansion at low gear levels, I have a few questions (I have read the first post, sorry if I have missed something).

- Is there a plan to include a +BV gem in Wotlk? Comparing [Item not found!] to[Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch] I estimate the item budget for it at 1 dodge rating = 1.5 BV

- Are there any changes planned for the pathetic scaling of BV from STR, now that Paladins are going to have STR on their tanking gear? (Compare 1 AGI =~ 0.75 dodge rating to 1 STR =~ 0.05 BV to the item budget values above)

- Has Blizzard ever stated a reason why they won't allow for BV stacking the same as they allow avoidance stacking?

Thanks.

rozetta · 08/05/08, 7:24 AM

The reason I liked the look of Seals of the Pure over One Handed Weapon Spec is because of Hammer of Righteousness. Proccing seals on 3 mobs every 6 seconds (especially SoV) sounds to me like 15% more damage on those would easily outweight the generic 5% more damage. This is not even taking into account the monster judgements we'll get with Seals of the Pure (which can now crit for 200%).

I'm not sure on the new numbers for damage that our tanking skills are putting out coupled with new itemization, but given the values on live, 5% of very little (under 200 per HS charge, 150 per conc tick, 250ish Righteousness proc, 40ish melee swing, 25ish ret aura, etc) is still very little.

As far as the Sheath build goes, I do like the idea - Imp Ret aura plus much more SD (which is the only stat to boost HS and Ret Aura) on a spec that would be stacking Str seems like a good idea. It just seems to me like it would lose a lot from not getting that extra instant attack. I'm remembering back to the days when I played a druid and swipe spam could hold aggro on many targets. This has to be something similar, in addition to being a cheap move for us to use when soloing.

I've also toyed around with trying to make a fun "2-hander prot" spec including ShoL, Reckoning, JotWise, TbtLight, etc. while skipping all the shield talents, but it suffers even more from not having anything interactive to do apart from judging, and falls on it's face with the fact that our new move is shield-based, and even HotR doesn't work with a 2-hander

Also, you can't really fully buff Ret Aura without going deep ret, in which case you will lose in the spell damage department. There might have been something cool in there otherwise. WTB a lot more available talent points

JulianMaiev · 08/05/08, 8:22 AM

Originally Posted by Nilaus

+5% is +5%

100 holy damage * 1.90 Reghteous Fury = 190 Threat

100 holy damage * 1.05 1H spec 1.90 Reghteous Fury = 199.5 Threat

it is just the same 5% no matter how you go about calculating it

It's actually less than a 5% threat increase, because it doesn't increase threat gains from Spiritual Attunement.

mclem · 08/05/08, 8:39 AM

Originally Posted by Zed

- Are there any changes planned for the pathetic scaling of BV from STR, now that Paladins are going to have STR on their tanking gear? (Compare 1 AGI =~ 0.75 dodge rating to 1 STR =~ 0.05 BV to the item budget values above)

On beta, last I heard, 2STR=1BV. That's a much more significant proportion.

Prinsesa · 08/05/08, 9:06 AM

- Are there any changes planned for the pathetic scaling of BV from STR, now that Paladins are going to have STR on their tanking gear? (Compare 1 AGI =~ 0.75 dodge rating to 1 STR =~ 0.05 BV to the item budget values above)

2 STR = 1 block value

- Is there a plan to include a +BV gem in Wotlk? Comparing [Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600] to [Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch] I estimate the item budget for it at 1 dodge rating = 1.5 BV

Given the above change, STR will become a block value gem. The AP it provides will also provide threat.

- Has Blizzard ever stated a reason why they won't allow for BV stacking the same as they allow avoidance stacking?

I'm not sure what you mean - I've been able to stack 800+ block value on gear by hunting down everything with BV on it. I can completely block most everything in the Outland outdoors save Durn the Hungerer and don't take any damage from anything in Shattered Halls except from the bosses.

Buanna · 08/05/08, 9:47 AM

Originally Posted by rozetta

- It goes without saying that Blessing of Sanctuary was a point I spend _only_ to get Holy Shield. This is plain wrong.

Why is everyone so down on Sanctuary? It reduces incoming damage vastly more than any other blessing.

levk · 08/05/08, 9:55 AM

Sanctuary's reduction is before armor, so that 80 damage reduction is actually more like 20.

Shuror · 08/05/08, 10:02 AM

Originally Posted by Buanna

Why is everyone so down on Sanctuary? It reduces incoming damage vastly more than any other blessing.

And that's because no other Blessing reduces damage taken as a primary effect.

BoK block value/dodge/armour increases are naturally very small right now. The BV effect will be stronger in WotLK. Still, even now they will sadly outscale BoSanc at some levels of mitigation, incoming damage and attack speed.

I think BoS wins the price for the worst-scaling buff in the game by far. It scales negatively with basically every mitigation stat.

flyingtoastr · 08/05/08, 10:34 AM

Originally Posted by Antmanton

Why all the Sheath hate? Speccing into something besides the traditional BC Holy/Prot or Prot/Ret builds isn't exploitation, it's simply a different choice. The fact that it might be better than the traditional cookie-cutter indicates at least one of two things:

You're not just giving up your 51-pointer here though. People are talking about dumping 15+ points in their main tree just to pick up Sheath like it's no big deal. That itself proves that there is a problem with SoL's position and/or power.

Either that or people really have no idea how the new scaling mechanics work (I'll give you a clue, everything scales better with AP than SP).