The blue socket in the leg armour practically forces JCs to use a prismatic +27 STR gem. Other than that, there do not seem to be any stronger boni to be gained from socketing for colour.
3 yellow gem slots? Like i will ever gem for something else than STR, outside of the meta gem requirements.
How is that different from current gearing? Doesn't matter what color the gems slots are for me, except which give the best bonuses for JC gems.
I was playing with Rawr and input all the plate dps gear in there, and actually came out with T8 shoulders(they were better than T7 in pretty much every setup I could think of) and Gloves that were BiS so far with an Ulduar gearset. Thats not including set bonuses of course, since I have no clue how to implement them... I realize all the Ulduar stuff isn't in game yet, but so far the stuff that has shown up is pretty decent.
The blue socket in the leg armour practically forces JCs to use a prismatic +27 STR gem. Other than that, there do not seem to be any stronger boni to be gained from socketing for colour.
You can just move it out of the T7 shoulders when upgrading to T8, since the shoulders are not worth using a Dragon's Eye on.
JotW doesn't need to be sunk to the bottom of the tree to make it unattractive for holy. For example you just need to have the mana return based on the difference between your AP and spell power.
Mana return = (AP - SP)*modifier for balance
For ret, it should give us 70% of our AP times what ever modifier is needed. For holy it should give nothing. Of course, as long as we don't have a mana dump, we don't need a scaling mana return but it would be a far more effective penalty for holy than dropping it further down the tree.
In regards to Ulduar Gear I was wondering if anyone else had begun to search for best gear setup It looks like the T8 legs and T8 Chest are a shoe in and so is the Neck off of Hodir and the Belt off of Iron Council
With those 4 alone we are at hit cap. Much different than our current naxx setup. People have spoken of avoiding the 4 piece or not. I thought of this too and just trying for best in slot off piece gear but from what I have seen so far there are good best in slot off piece items but they are drown in hit which we will not need which would make them void. For instance the T8 shoulders are not that impressive however the only off piece shoulder I have seen thus far which is any better by itself has Hit on them which with the 4 pieces I mentioned above would make that stat Null. The gloves for T8 are also itemized pretty well and the other dps glove alternatives do not look very impressive
There are 2 new DPS trinkets
The brood mother one from 10 man which ahs 95 hit and a proc of 1256 attack power. This looks impressive but when we take into account the hit may not be useful it is not so much
Wrathstone gives 104 crit I beleive and when used gives 856 attack power for 20 seconds witha 2 minute cooldown I am assuming. This would be better but I am reluctant to replace fury of the five flights or DC greatness for either of these trinkets
There are 2 new strength rings which seem formidable in Ulduar too. One of them again gives hit. The other is very similar to Ruthlessness and have armor pen instead of expertise. If the Neck off hodir, belt of Iron council and assuming I am packing 4 piece tier 8 it might be better to stick with Ruthlessness and the new strength ring which lacks the hit
Again the best boots I have seen drops off of General Vezax and they also have hit.
One poster linked the helm from MMO Champion which has Hit crit and strength on it. While this would be better I would almost venture to say it would be better to go with a different helm witch has not hit.
I may be wrong about the neck off hodir and belt off iron council being the best in slot but they are from hard mode chests and the stats on them are far better than any of the alternative loot I have seen thus far.
Just an issue I wanted to see if anyone else had noticed or not yet. The gear is not modeled to any spreadsheets yet so wanted to hear other people's thoughts. Also very unpredictable what the exact stat hierarchy will be in 3.1
Any intresting ideas on which pieces of loot we should go in hunting for? I like to have it all planned out so I dont spend needless DKP.
At any rate it is less depressing then speaking of our current dps/nerf status in Ulduar
In regards to Prot having more strength than the Ret set, this is exactly how it was with t7. Str is a valuable stat to Prot as well.
FYI, strength is the best threat stat (and some mitigation via bigger blocks) for Prot Pallies. It makes sense that it has more strength base than the Ret set (since Ret will just socket strength gems).
Originally Posted by trv186
Wrathstone gives 104 crit I beleive and when used gives 856 attack power for 20 seconds witha 2 minute cooldown I am assuming. This would be better but I am reluctant to replace fury of the five flights or DC greatness for either of these trinkets
Wrathstone (140AP + easy Wings macro) is better than Fury, but Greatness is still BiS.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
Exemplar, I don't want to open up a massive can of worms, but any argumentation that includes a "time till OOM" for ret I have a very hard time agreeing with, no matter at what point you draw the line.
No worms, no can. For the record - I do not disagree with you in the slightest, Avitus. Blue Rage should be the standard.
However, Blizzard has repeatedly stated they want us to be concerned about mana and continues to balance us not at mana neutrality, but far below it. How and why, I have no idea. It's not like we can slip into Aspect of the Viper to recoup until full or avoid a mana dump, all we can do is not use core abilities. As such my suggested balance point of 25% is based on the level of regen they have repeatedly displayed (by making effective) they find satisfactory. The only reason we're not going OOM regularly has been SoB AOE damage+SA.
My analysis of time to OOM was based on current live time to OOM on a no-AOE boss such as Patchwerk (i.e. very little mana regen). Ideally JotW should be 25% and we should have some method other than lame DP to also regen mana efficiently (I'm not happy having all our active regen tied to Judgement hitting - all it takes is a gimmick fight with silence, minus hit, or reflections to screw us). Sub-optimally, but still viable would be JotW at 33% as Arikah has suggested.
Anyone else notice that JotW at 25%+ makes every judgement nearly as effective as a 1 minute cooldown DP (buffs affecting Int are the only variable). At 33% it would probably equal or exceed DP every 8 seconds. Perhaps DP is the broken item.
So anyone who wants to critique my time to OOM comparisons - feel free, just tell it to Blizzard. I was only generating some rough numbers so we knew how bad it truly is.
Question about the increase of ArmPen and Haste:
Do these increases affect Ratings only, or talents and abilities? Is Swift Retribution 3% * 1.3? Does the Armor Pen change affect the armor pierce under Bubble of Sanctified Wrath? Is Heroism now 30% * 1.3?
I've modeled as only affecting ratings, which as I've said makes Greater Speed on cloak still worse than Major Agi.
Haste and ArmPen have increased in and of themselves, but not budged in the hierarchy of desirable stats. Still below Crit/Agi and above Spelldamage. A rough example - new Haste at 130% effectiveness is still below old ArmPen at 100% effectiveness (much less 125%), and we all know ArmPen sucked. These are not huge buffs.
Rock: "We're sub-standard DPS. Nerf Paper, Scissors are fine."
Paper: "OMG, WTF, Scissors!"
Scissors: "Rock is OP and Paper are QQers. We need PvP buffs."
While Prot may have more str than the ret set, it doesn't have haste/crit, which are very important for dps. You have to be less narrow-minded when it comes to looking at stats; while str is certainly our best stat, it's not the only stat. And since itemization works in such a way that isn't 1:1 as stats increase (meaning you get more out of 5 different stats on an item than you would 4, and hence why an item with only str and stam would be bad), you have to look at the item as a whole, ESPECIALLY since the buff to haste/ArP.
Originally Posted by Exemplar
Question about the increase of ArmPen and Haste:
Do these increases affect Ratings only, or talents and abilities? Is Swift Retribution 3% * 1.3? Does the Armor Pen change affect the armor pierce under Bubble of Sanctified Wrath? Is Heroism now 30% * 1.3?
Only ratings... the buff was intended to buff the rating on items because everyone undervalued it so heavily. I don't think the amount of rating on items is changing, but rather the power of 1 rating.
Formally Xyrm/Zurm, the Ret Pally. Now playing my rogue, Zyrm, more casually with RL friends.
Regarding Divine Plea and its worthlessness for us:
At 25% JotW, it would be equal without an int buff. This definitely makes DP comparatively worthless. Perhaps a talent, hell maybe even JotW if they are moving it down far enough in the ret tree so holy won't be able to go for it, making DP be increased to 100% of mana or something. DP is not for ret pallies as it currently stands, we do have available global cooldowns, so you can fit it in and get a little more mana, but it doesn't affect time til OOM very much.
JotW is base mana, I don't see why holy paladins would ever go for that.
Historically Holy Paladins have gone for JotW when it was based on total mana (beta) or because of Replenishment (PvP), not because of the direct mana returns (which are quite small compared to the cost of a Holy Pally's spells)..
Ran some more numbers out of curiosity, this time on ArmPen.
Name
3.0.9
3.1
Boss armour
13083
10610
Sunder + FF
-5185
-24%
Mitigation no Sunder/FF
46.2%
41.06%
Mitigation w/ Sunder+FF
34.15%
34.61%
You can swap Sunder with Expose Armour and FF with CoR/CoW (depending on patch).
As you can see, physical damage in a raid is slightly reduced in 3.1. For those that don't want to research, % mitigation vs. an 83 is Armour/(Armour+15232.5)
This is using the previously derived information that Sunder and FF are multiplicative in 3.1 (24% reduction, not 25%) and that Armour gets reduction from Sunder+FF, then further reduction from ArmPen rather than combining ArmPen with the Sunder+FF reduction (otherwise 76% ArmPen would put a boss at 0% armour).
I ran a lot more numbers showing the reduction at each 1% of ArmPen in 3.0.9, and 1.25% ArmPen in 3.1 (to mirror same ArmPen rating on gear).
What I found was that until you have about 7% ArmPen via old rating, or 8.75% in new value, you are doing less physical damage in a raid. Somewhere in the next % it pulls ahead and you begin doing more damage in 3.1.
3.0.9 ArmPen
3.0.9 Reduction
3.1 ArmPen
3.1 Reduction
0%
34.15%
0%
34.61%
1%
33.92%
1.25%
34.33%
2%
33.69%
2.5%
34.04%
3%
33.46%
3.75%
33.75%
4%
33.23%
5%
33.46%
5%
33%
6.25%
33.17%
6%
32.77%
7.5%
32.87%
7%
32.53%
8.75%
32.57%
8%
32.30%
10%
32.27%
Every rating beyond pulls ahead in 3.1, but that's a high break even point. Huzzah for the ArmPen "buff."
I'm prone to stupid math errors, that's why I've tried to clearly display things here. Please correct my math.
Don't get me wrong, it is buffed. I have over 8% ArmPen on my gear and will see a tiny increase. But the changes in base armour and debuffing make it far less than you would expect/hope.
Edit:
Swerving topic again. I think we should be balanced decently mana positive and give us a mana dump ability. Holy Tickle, Shin Kick of Righteousness, call it whatever, and probably model it off Heroic Strike.
Good paladins can add extra DPS through use of this mana dump and end a fight precisely OOM for slightly higher DPS. Bad paladins can overuse, run low on mana, drop other core abilities, net lower DPS. Same as warriors with their rage.
Last edited by Exemplar : 03/20/09 at 12:20 PM.
Rock: "We're sub-standard DPS. Nerf Paper, Scissors are fine."
Paper: "OMG, WTF, Scissors!"
Scissors: "Rock is OP and Paper are QQers. We need PvP buffs."
I'm prone to stupid math errors, that's why I've tried to clearly display things here. Please correct my math.
The math all looks correct to me, based on the assumption that Armor Penetration from gear is still being applied after the 24% reduction from Sunder/FF.
However, now that Sunder/FF is a % reduction, it may make sense for Blizzard to have changed it so that all % reductions stack together and then apply to the original 10610 armor. If this were the case, then the breakeven point would be at approximately 3% current armorpen (instead of 8%), and anyone at 8%+ current armorpen would see a moderate buff.
... it may make sense for Blizzard to have changed it so that all % reductions stack together and then apply to the original 10610 armor.
They are "stacking together." They are multiplicative, not additive. If Sunder and FF are multiplying to our detriment, (100 - (20% * 5%) = 76%, while 100% - (20% + 5%) = 75%, then ArmPen being additive is highly unlikely.
Most Likely:
Armour * (100% - Sunder) * (100% - FF) * (100% - ArmPen)
Requires 100% ArmPen to put a target to 0 Armour.
99% ArmPen leaves a target at 81 armour and 0.53% reduction of damage.
This would be no change in how ArmPen functions (only Sunder and FF). See math above.
Unlikely:
Armour * (((100% - Sunder) * (100% - FF)) + (100% - ArmPen))
This would lead to 76% ArmPen putting a target to 0 Armour and no damage reduction.
This would be a change in how ArmPen functions.
I think we'd need Bloodthirst tests (such as those that derived boss armour) to prove ArmPen definitively. Regardless, my understanding is ArmPen may be broken - same source. Instead of increasing ArmPen by 25% (as the tooltip displays) it may be reducing by 25%, so we cannot validate until it functions as Blizzard described.
Per those tests:
Armour * (100% - Sunder) * (100% - FF) * (100% - (ArmPen/1.25))
I'm sure this is identified and will be resolved, at which point my previous post will suddenly become game-modeling math.
If ArmPen is unchanged (no 25%) boost, the change in Boss Armour is a huge loss and Armpen devalues. If ArmPen is changed for the worse (negative 25%), it's devalued. If ArmPen is changed for the better (positive 25%) it's devalued to 8%, then gains value. It's still an exceedingly weak stat for Ret.
Rock: "We're sub-standard DPS. Nerf Paper, Scissors are fine."
Paper: "OMG, WTF, Scissors!"
Scissors: "Rock is OP and Paper are QQers. We need PvP buffs."
Swerving topic again. I think we should be balanced decently mana positive and give us a mana dump ability. Holy Tickle, Shin Kick of Righteousness, call it whatever, and probably model it off Heroic Strike.
Good paladins can add extra DPS through use of this mana dump and end a fight precisely OOM for slightly higher DPS. Bad paladins can overuse, run low on mana, drop other core abilities, net lower DPS. Same as warriors with their rage.
While I like the idea (rewarding skilled Paladins via a mana dump), I see that is against the dev's vision of the class (to be simple to play). I'd rather they focus on making Ret mana neutral and lessening Judgement of Blood self-damage.
However, if Blood isn't changed, perhaps the skilled Paladin can be seen by knowing when to cast AoW Flashes.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
Unlikely:
Armour * (((100% - Sunder) * (100% - FF)) + (100% - ArmPen))
This would lead to 76% ArmPen putting a target to 0 Armour and no damage reduction.
This would be a change in how ArmPen functions.
Maybe I'm just silly, but it seems to me like the way that would "make the most sense" would be for it to work like:
Armor * (100% - Sunder - FF - ArmPen)
Now that everything is converted to percentages and there are no flat values being subtracted, there's a possibility they could have decided to change it to this much, much simpler formula.
Of course this is unlikely, since it didn't work this way in the past, but it may be worth testing to verify - especially in light of Blizzard claiming that "armor penetration is being buffed", when that isn't really the case if they leave the equations as is (unless you stack alot of armorpen)
Someone stated above that "Ret can't slip into AotV and recoup," as a matter of fact we can Seal of Wisdom works like this, only at a much slower rate. I'd really hate to see Blizzard balancing aroudn the fact that we can SoW up and regen that way. Or, if they do, then they should balance us around that.
The good paladin uses SoB and AoW flashes and survives a fight? The bad paladin uses SoC, SoR, or dies? Ouch. Though I suspect this is essentially correct with the sad note that a good healer and a bad paladin can masquerade as a good paladin.
Being balanced around cooldowns is fine - give us infinite mana.
Being balanced around mana is fine - give us a mana dump.
Being balanced around both requires an awful lot of work to balance, which is why we're typically not on such a balance point.
I have to say, WAR has to be worse. I understand they have race-only classes which can only increase a balancing nightmare. More possible classes means more difficulty balancing them all unless they're effectively identical.
Edit:
Aspect of the Viper costs 0 mana. Guaranteed 4% max mana per 3 (give or take weaponspeed, per tooltip).
Seal of Wisdom costs 14% base mana (615 mana). Chance to proc on melee swing 4% max mana. Apparently 15 PPM. Requires 4 procs to pull ahead, or about 12 seconds. Double that to change seal back (another 14%). 10% of a 5 minute fight to break even, more to actively gain. 0 damage from seal and Judgement damage tanks.
Apples and Oranges.
Last edited by Exemplar : 03/20/09 at 3:18 PM.
Rock: "We're sub-standard DPS. Nerf Paper, Scissors are fine."
Paper: "OMG, WTF, Scissors!"
Scissors: "Rock is OP and Paper are QQers. We need PvP buffs."
However, if Blood isn't changed, perhaps the skilled Paladin can be seen by knowing when to cast AoW Flashes.
There's no skill involved in casting an AoW every time you're low on health (it just becomes systematic), neither can skill help you out of some random AoE + JoB recoil deaths.
/nitpick
I think the skill involved will be in situations such as casting hands or AoW heals on "others" (as well as notions such as proc based mechanics that make us adjust our rotations). That is, if we're cease to be such a massive liability ourselves.
Q u o t e:
The "Sacred Shield" ability's shield pulses do not scale at all with Spellpower gained from the "Sheathe of Light" talent. It does scale properly with spellpower gained from "Touched by the Light" and "Holy Guidance", as well as spellpower gained from gear.
Please re-examine this bug, and consider fixing it.
Someone stated above that "Ret can't slip into AotV and recoup," as a matter of fact we can Seal of Wisdom works like this, only at a much slower rate.
If we could switch seals without a mana cost like Hunters' aspects, then this might be a valid point. But you can't even make an argument that Seal of Wisdom is a poor man's AotV unless they remove the enormous mana cost to switch seals.
I still have trouble reconciling some of the changes we're seeing with the restrictions that they continue to leave in in place. As they continue to remove side effects from glyphs, lower penalties associated with base line mechanics, and improving abilities to make them more interesting and compelling.
Re: JotW, Mana, Rage, and stuff.
I understand the arguments back and forth about Holy getting the talent, moving it, upping the amount of mana, and the regen mechanic that Avitus discusses - but I think the part that needs to be fixed is Mana Vs. Damage Rotation - which we can do without changing the Mana vs. Non Damage abilities.
Don't adjust the cost of Judgement, simply adjust the costs of Exorcism, DS, and CS. Now, the current amount is enough to run indefinitely but it doesn't increase our mana regen vs. secondary abilities, and it doesn't increase our mana regen in full-regen mode. (That is, just using judgement.). No change for Holy, no change for Prot, no change for PVE over right now (other than adjusting for losing SA), no change for PVP, no change for consecration. Little more work than just upping the amount, but less side effect.
That said, our inability to return mana through shields or when we miss with a judgement, coupled with DP being dispelled is something I'm very concerned about. Not sky is falling maybe, but I'm not going to be surprised if this comes back as an issue.
Re: Recoil Damage
I remember (vaguely) the post that sideways mentioned the recoil damage being in place to discourage SoB usage for PVP. I think that was a very naive hope. Giving us 30 minute seals, decreasing our dps, and lowering our mana return is a poor backdrop for telling us that we should be dancing seals in non-trivial encounters. It was weird enough that Blood acted like Lifetap-Over-Time (LOT, tm). Without that effect it's just gratuitous.
I'm sorry they can't get SoC right. I'm glad its there for leveling. But, honestly, the difference between it and Righteousness while leveling isn't enough to make it a talent. A talent that has no significant purpose end game should be removed. I know that isn't always a popular belief - and admittedly, I practice character - monogamy. Just saying - the problems of poor ret paladins from level 20 to level 62 really just don't interest me.
03/19/09, 7:05 PM
Seal of Wisdom works like this, only at a much slower rate. I'd really hate to see Blizzard balancing aroudn the fact that we can SoW up and regen that way. Or, if they do, then they should balance us around that.
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