ToA|Sugar

Hello,
I implemented some new things in my simulator and fixed some bugs.

New from version 0.2.0 to version 0.2.2:
You can add seperate stats to your calculation and see what the itempoints are.
You can set a limit of mana, which means "oom" to you. If you are oom you just use FoLs.
Now you can use Divine Plea in a spam sequence, for example 2 minutes, or use it when oom.

Again, suggestions and questions about mechanics and use are welcome.

Loatheb Website

 

Nodrak

Imp. Concentration also works on the Lynx since he can earth shock your casts.

 

Drayton

Encounters are designed so they can be done without Imp Concentration Aura. I really can't imagine Blizz sitting down & saying the only way you can defeat boss X is by having a holy pally in the raid with 3/3 ICA. It can be helpful at times, but it's never gamebreaking.

 

Proudmoore

That's hardly a profound comment. No individual talent has or should have a game-breaking effect on a given boss, but it might make it easier, which is what we should be considering.

Nitpick aside, I can't disagree that those talent points would in general be better spent elsewhere.

 

Perastra

Fair point. I think since the changes to spell pushback it really needs its main effect to be altered in some way since with Spiritual Focus you don't need to max out the talent to be pushback immune.

 

Endoscient

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think every caster class now has a talent for 70% push back reduction. So normal conc aura will suffice, and you don't really have the spare points to put in there like you did for 2.x. Imp Conc can still be useful if you are getting silenced, but those fights are few and far between.

 

seul

Frost Mages and Shadowpriests dont, as far as i'm aware. This would be the main point for picking up Imp. Conc. Aura, i'm not so much concerned about the silence, since it is, like mentioned before, highly situational. The pushback reduction for those talent specs that come without a talented one is going to be useful on a lot more encounters.

 

Nurru

Improved Shadowform - Spell - World of Warcraft

Just Frost Mages.

 

Saladin

Ice Barrier - Spell - World of Warcraft

Which brings us back full-circle to the intended "necessity" of certain talents and abilities. Unfortunately, that sort of highlights a glaring default in the design of Concentration Aura.

Retribution Aura assumes raid members will be getting hit. 100% of raid fights involve someone, somewhere, getting hit. Add 3% damage, 3% haste, and 50% effect, you get a very powerful talented aura.

Devotion Aura assumes raid members, once again, will be getting hit. 100% of raid fights, once again, involve someone, somewhere, getting hit. Add 6% healing and 50% effect, you get a decent talented aura.

Concentration Aura assumes raid members will be getting spell pushback. There are a deplorably low number of such encounters in endgame raiding. In the whole of BC we had what--Sunwell and Hex Lord? that had any spell pushback mechanics to non-tanks at all. Arguably it can assist in helping AoE'rs, but most of the time they're fine with or without it. Which really sums up everyone's feelings towards Concentration Aura. It's the aura you put up when you already have Devo and Ret covered, and the benefit it grants to the raid is questionable at best.

I'd rather not rely on nor invest talent points in improving an aura that could be replaced with Crusader and result in almost no noticeable difference in raid performance.

That's why Improved Devo looks so intriguing. It may be redundant with treeform druids, but it actually helps us do our jobs better. But even I can't argue against sub-speccing ret, where each of 18 points spent would work to make us more effective healers. By comparison, prot only offers 8/18 useful healing talents out of the number required to reach Imp Devo.

I think the best solution here is to try to achieve some personal synergy with your guildmates. Every prot paladin reaches a point at the 4th tier where they have to choose between Imp. Devo and BoK. If you have a prot paladin you raid with, convince him to take Improved Devo. and let you get BoK. That will still allow you a lot more freedom to invest in ret.

 

Zarty

While I agree with your point overall, There are certainly more fights than that where pushback is at least noticable, and that means if a healer gets pushback at exactly the wrong time, you might get screwed. Maybe you don't remember because you had concentration aura all the time. The fel rage target on Bloodboil (though earth shield should help most healers reach 100% here) and the reflected damage from RoS P2 on the DPS (which is a fair decrease in DPS for a DPS race phase) come to mind.

But yes, in 95% of the cases the only ones you REALLY need to worry about are healers, and all healers have anti-pushback talents available so that they can hit 100% without any points in concentration aura. So it really is very meh. I'd feel a little better about it if getting the Imp. Conc Aura talents let us skip out some points on Spiritual Focus and use them somewhere else interesting. You CAN go 4/5 spiritual focus and 3/3 Imp Conc. Aura and still hit 100% yourself, but the only place you can put that point is 1/5 seals of the pure.

 

Malleus

Not to mention that you're spending 2 or 3 points in order to free up one. (4/5 Focus and 2/3 Imp CA is a cumulative 101%.) It simply is not economical to put points in Imp CA unless Silence or Spell Lock is going to be an issue. In PVP this is default, but in PVE it generally means respeccing for a single fight - in which case, it isn't worth it as the benefit is not great enough.

I will also join you in disagreeing completely with Saladin's assertion that Conc Aura is the last one you put up over Devo and Retri. Prior to 3.0 and the changes in pushback it was always the first aura we put up, for exactly the same reasons you gave. Mother can be as heavy a pushback fight as Hex Lord, and RoS P2 is nothing but unceasing raid-wide pushback. OK, not every fight has pushback, but it's not as simple as saying "100% of the time people will be hit, so dealing damage when hit is better than pushback mitigation". Conc Aura can benefit as many as twenty of 25 raid members, depending on the fight. If Ret Aura benefits anyone other than the tanks when there's no Ret Paladin in the raid, it means the melee have pulled aggro. If that happens, Ret Aura actually becomes a liability.

 

Harrygoz

emphasis mine

I think this is a valid point. I made a post a few pages back that we were the only class with a 5 point pushback talent

However, for our support role, Priests and shamans (and I assume caster dps classes) can skip their pushback talents (which are all 2-3 point talents anyways) for other beneficial talents, so I believe that Conc aura is definitely our "goto" spell for a raid aura. But is 50% really that much better than 35%? Not for the investment into it.

 

• frmorrison

Imp Conc Aura is a powerful PvP talent, and not so much for PvE as others have said. I am fine with that.


I would like to see Focus put at 3 points then add another Tier 1 talent (like Aura Mastery).

 

Saladin

It seems like what we have here is a difference of personal perception.

Ret Aura is at least moderately useful 100% of the time.

Conc Aura is EXTREMELY useful 50% of the time (and I use the term 50% very, very loosely).

In my eyes, that makes ret unequivocally better. But I understand where you're coming from, and I commend that. I judge an ability's merit by the range of its effectiveness. You judge an ability's merit by the value of its effectiveness. I don't think either of us is necessarily right or wrong here, and the most enlightened viewpoint would probably be a combination of the two.

The other thing we both need to consider is we're both using Pre-3.0 examples, and that means nothing at this point in time. For all we know, Icecrown will have spell pushback on every single fight. Or maybe zero. We have to wait and see.

I would still like to see a permanent raidwide buff give a permanent raidwide benefit if we are going to invest talent points in it, however.

 

Endoscient

I think someone here is right or wrong, and you are looking at it the wrong way. The goal of everything we do is the maximize the chance that we win a fight. So one of those two choices (Ret or Conc) is going to increase our chance to do that by the most, and whichever one does that is the right choice.

How often will Ret Aura make the difference on if you win the fight or not? Almost never.
How often will Concentration Aura make the difference on if you win the fight or not? Significantly more often, if anyone dies and you got pushed back, it could have saved them.

The usefulness of 100% pusback immunity is very great, there are many many fights were you can get pushed back. I would say 75%-90% of the fights in BC you had the possibility of getting your spells pushed back, try to disprove me on it if you don't believe me. The only time I would ever use Ret Aura over Conc is if I am 100% certain if on that fight I will never get pushed back, which is almost never the case.

I don't think you will ever be needed to supply Devotion Aura. Since it doesn't stack with Stoneskin and there is only one other decent earth totem (Strength of Earth), so you would only need to do it if you have 1 shaman and no prot pally. Which is very unlikely to occur, especially with how amazing BoSanc is. In a 10man, where that might occur, I still think Concentration is better, unless it is impossible for you to get pushed back.

frmorrison, I am happy with how tier 1 is. I think that is the cost we pay for being able to provide ourselves with 100% pushback immunity with Conc.

edit
Some examples since you said only Sunwell and Hexlord cause push back.
BT
Najentus: A lot of push back from all the raid wide damage.
Supremus: Nothing.
Akama: You could get hit if the tank didn't pick up the mob instantly.
Teron: Random raid shadowbolts or if constructs get into the raid.
Bloodboil: Fel Rage
RoS: From all the of the raid wide damage.
Mother: If you get a port near you.
Council: The Holy Fire.
Illidan: All of the AoE damage in P2.

ZA
Eagle: The swarm of eagles cause massive push back.
Bear: Nothing.
Dragonhawk: If you get Dragonhawk aggro, or the fire breath.
Lynx: If you get flame shocked, or the AoE on phase transition.
Hexlord: The AoE.
Zul'Jin: If you get focused in P4.

A lot more fights have push back then you led us to believe. Please explain how the paltry dps of Ret aura is better on any of these fights, except the 2 that don't have it.

 

Palados

He talks about improved ret that adds a few extra things. I bet that I wiped at 1-3% of boss HP more often (where ret raidwide would make a difference) than when a heal was pushed back and not landed that caused a wipe.

Or put it this way - while there are fights where spells get pushed, there are close to 0 fights (except pre-pre-nerf Muru) where 70% and 100% pushback will make a real difference. (if we don't consider hypothetical situations of course). Few % more raidwide DPS will make bigger difference in progress fight in my opinion.

 

Harrygoz

Lets get realistic on how much dmg ret aura is going to do

112 base dmg = 1 dmg per 20.3 spell power
~210 dmg for 2k spellpower

2s boss swing time ~105 dps

Ret aura is adding 105 dps to the tank -- that could be your sub 1% wipe, but it sure isn't going to be much more than that

 

EvadDeWahr

Lets not argue the same thing in different ways or argue about totally different things.

There is currently two-three conversations about Auras.

1. The order of putting up Auras depending on how many Paladins are in the raid.

2. How good or bad Imp Concentration Aura is.

How good normal Concentration Aura is and Spell push back fights against Ret Aura probably go into discussion 1.

One thing that I have noticed is that since 3.0.2 I have to keep going into the Paladin channel to find out who has what improved Auras. I will have to see what I can do about an addon or adjustment to Pallypower.

 

Endoscient

A Holy Paladin can't get any Ret aura talents though, so you only get paltry tank dps increase. There have been times, when I was in tank group for Devo, that someone died while I was healing them but the heal didn't reach in time because of push back, so it isn't just hypothetical.

Harrygoz, Ret arua doesn't proc on avoided attacks, so it is more like 50 dps. Conc arua will provide significantly more dps from the reduced push back on dps casters. I don't see how people can think it is even close on a fight where there is a chance for push back to occur.

 

Saladin

I appreciate the conversations on every side of the argument, but I'm still seeing a lot of missed points.

I'm not talking about the 50% increased effect in ret aura making it such a good talented aura. I'm talking about it providing 3% raid damage AND 3% raid haste. That's 2 class/specs' defining auras rolled into one package. It's a very real, palpable difference compared to running without it. It's something ret wants to take, it's something ret wants to use. I don't see why we can't have that for the Holy Tree.

Hell, swap the effects for Improved Concentration and Improved Devotion Aura--that would make the most sense to free up some of the "wasted" holy/prot points. If Improved Concentration Aura gave 6% healing, Holy paladins would love to use it. Conversely, if Improved Devotion Aura gave reduced Silence/Interrupt effect, it would be a boon to the many tankadins who have trouble on Silencing fights.

The current placement of these talents is just...disruptive is the only way I can describe it.

 

Endoscient

You are talking about Blizzard changing the trees so Holy Paladins will get Ret Aura talents and only use it? It will never happen, and it is a bad idea. I don't think it was ever clear before you were talking about what should be done by blizzard, not what raiding Paladins should do. Holy Paladins want to use concentration aura to help there and others spell casting, not ret aura to increase other people's dps. Many other healers are jealous of the fact we are push back immune without having to rely on another class. I think you are writing off the benefits of push back immunity way too much.

While changing Imp Conc aura would be decent for PvE Holy, it would be a HUGE nerf for PvP if you took away the silence reduction. I think it is fine just leaving Imp Conc as mainly a PvP talent. Prot Paladins don't want silence duration reduction on Devotion aura at the cost of healing received, they want there abilities to be Physical school like Rets, which a lot of them are now.

How is Holy using Ret Aura to increase DPS of the raid anywhere near as disruptive as Holy using Concentration Aura to prevent push back?

Also at this point of WotLK we shouldn't really keep discussing what changes Blizzard should make to our class. Assume our class is done for WotLK and if things get changed we can discuss it then. Its fine to mention, when relevant, that you think a talent/ability is out of place and what problems you have with it. But giving your pet idea to fix our class isn't very useful at this point.

 

Saladin

No, I'm not at all advocating Holy using ret aura. This whole discussion emerged over the merit of investing deep enough in prot to get Improved Devo Aura to use over Concentration Aura. According to the talent trees, each spec should be using a specific aura--Devo for Prot, Conc for Holy, and Ret for Ret. As I observed, Ret gets the most bang for their buck, followed by Prot, followed by Holy.

I believe we can all generally agree that Improved Concentration is necessary for PVP, and of marginal/debated effectiveness in PVE. As such, it would make more sense to swap Imp Conc and Devo's effects. That way, PVP holy paladins could pick it up since they subspec prot anyway, while PVE holy paladins could subspec ret and be happy with the Improved Concentration they get from Holy. The talent leaves much to be desired, and I'm curious as to the implications if Blizzard did decide to make these changes.

That's a big if that's likely never to occur, but it would certainly do a lot to clean up the general malaise surrounding the Holy tree. If the question is "what should holy use right now," it's an obvious Concentration Aura. It's just a shame that we don't have more incentive to improve it, unlike Prot and Ret.

 

Endoscient

That is still horrible for PvP, since Holy Paladins wouldn't be immune to push back, because they would have to use Devotion Aura over Concentration aura. I don't see what is wrong with leaving Imp Conc where it is as a PvP talent.

I do not agree the with your order of Ret, Devo, then Conc for usefulness. Both Ret/Devo (and there imp versions) are all also provided by some other class (BM Hunter, Moonkins, Stoneskin and ToL aura) that you are likely to have one of already. Nothing else provides the effect of concentration aura, and it is really good and useful in all almost all fights.

 

Vhex

The point is how much the talent amps it. Conc aura for most classes takes you from a little push back to no push back while imp conc aura does nothing at all now outside of raiding frost mages and I'm sure there are just tons of those. So for 3 talent points in imp conc aura you get...nothing. It's a pure pvp talent. That's all there is to it.

It's impossible to model what aura you'll be using in fights because it varies incredibly based on raid makup and on the fight itself. Whether or not you'll spec 20 deep into prot vs. 18 deep in ret depends on your guilds paladin situation and how often you switch between 10 and 25 man raiding and it's up to the individual paladin to weigh their options.

Can we move on? 8(