Khaelarys, I've thought about the reduction of cost for abilities instead of increasing regen and it is viable.
The only problem would be such issues as mana burn which would completely destroy us in PvP. Consecration would have to be part of the equation as well and I'm not sure how much rebalancing this would require on the prot front as well.
However, at this point any solution which keeps us mana neutral (or a few points into positive preferably for utility) would be acceptable.
Regarding recoil damage, we've had page long essays about this and here's what it ultimately boils down to in my mind as a high concept argument:
->Adding artificial incentives and/or penalties to "force" a specific style of play is never going to be the way to go. Chances that it succeeds are very slim and chances that you'll annoy your player base are very high.
They need to focus on something that comes natural (spell that's not really powerful on moving targets such as consecration as one of many possible examples) instead of adding stupid artificial gimmicks like recoil to balance PvP.
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.
It wasn't so much the JotW mana return, but the proc of Replenishment that was so valuable for Holy/Ret hybrids (though the JotW didn't hurt=).
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.
This is something that I had mentioned a little while ago, but like Avitus just said, it would give us a severe handicap in PvP. I don't claim to be an Arena Junkie or anything close to the sort, but I understand the position of the argument.
Why not make Crusader Strike more interesting? Rename swift Retribution 'On Hallowed Ground' or something, add to it "Your Crusader Strikes have a 33/66/100% chance to apply consecration. I realize this steals heavily from the DK Talent in Unholy, but I mean whatever, they have a Vengeance. Saves us Mana, isn't available to other specs, and gives some minor flavour to a ridiculously bland talent.
Khaelarys, I've thought about the reduction of cost for abilities instead of increasing regen and it is viable.
The only problem would be such issues as mana burn which would completely destroy us in PvP. Consecration would have to be part of the equation as well and I'm not sure how much rebalancing this would require on the prot front as well.
However, at this point any solution which keeps us mana neutral (or a few points into positive preferably for utility) would be acceptable.
I'm not really convinced on that. Consecration is unsuitable for pvp. It will pretty much continue to be that way - mana cost could be free and it would still be the case.
Right now, mana burn is % base of our pool. Once we get below judgement cost, it doesn't matter. That might be short sighted on my part, but I still see it as a wash.
My concern with mana burn is that the same people who burn me can now dispel DP - The only ability I have to kick start my mana regen. To me, that's a much bigger deal.
Originally Posted by Avitus
Regarding recoil damage, we've had page long essays about this and here's what it ultimately boils down to in my mind as a high concept argument:
->Adding artificial incentives and/or penalties to "force" a specific style of play is never going to be the way to go. Chances that it succeeds are very slim and chances that you'll annoy your player base are very high.
They need to focus on something that comes natural (spell that's not really powerful on moving targets such as consecration as one of many possible examples) instead of adding stupid artificial gimmicks like recoil to balance PvP.
It's not even a different style. It's not like we gear differently, or time our buttons differently, or shift our rotation. The harder I hit you, the more I hurt me. That's like letting mobs crit you in the original prot tree because I want Redoubt and Reckoning to proc. It's an upside down mechanic and there is no convincing argument for it. It's punitive and no longer has a place. If you can't fix SoC to make it interesting and balanced, I'm sorry. Not my bug.
I'm not really convinced on that. Consecration is unsuitable for pvp. It will pretty much continue to be that way - mana cost could be free and it would still be the case.
Right now, mana burn is % base of our pool. Once we get below judgement cost, it doesn't matter. That might be short sighted on my part, but I still see it as a wash.
It's not about Consecration in PvP, it's simply that if you want to keep low regen and balance ret around very low ability cost then consecration has to be cheaper too (for PvE). Meaning it's cheaper for prot and cheaper for holy. Personally I don't have a problem with that, though I'm sure there's some meta-concept the devs would be breaking if they did, which we're not seeing and which may or may not make sense.
Regarding the mana burn problem, think about it this way:
Mana Burn currently removes 13% mana every two seconds. If we're balanced around very low mana regen (no SA anymore and JotW at 15%) and keep ability cost very low that's great for PvE, however in PvP you can be burned and kept down very easily (combine that with dispellable Divine Plea it really feels like a bad joke).
If they instead leave our ability cost as is, but increase yields from JotW to 30%+ then mana burn will be less of a death sentence (though an acceptable "dent" in our resource pool).
As I said earlier, I would subscribe to your idea if they ultimately went that route ("it can work"), though I maintain that it wouldn't be optimal ("upping regen would work better").
My concern with mana burn is that the same people who burn me can now dispel DP - The only ability I have to kick start my mana regen. To me, that's a much bigger deal.
I'm pretty sure that from a balance standpoint they need to make DP dispellable because of holy paladins. If that is the case they should simply make sheath of light cause DP to be undispellable. If not, we'll need to coordinate CC with our partner and/or use LoS to get the DP off if low, and I don't see a huge problem with that.
Also, if Blizzard really does keep our mana regen the same as it is now vis-a-vis SA>increased JotW then I don't have any reason to worry about getting burned in PvP. I'm only at 1930+ in 2s but I haven't been mana burned once in the 140 games we played to get there, and I have no mana problems in arena. If I'm applying sufficient pressure my priest doesn't get burned either. Also, have fun dispelling DP with the ~8 buffs I have on me.
The use or lose nature of SoB/SotM in arena right now is a much greater concern to me, along with the PvE recoil and PvE mana limitations. Rationalizing broken mechanics doesn't mean there is no problem. It is like saying "It's just a flesh wound"!
Why not make Crusader Strike more interesting? Rename swift Retribution 'On Hallowed Ground' or something, add to it "Your Crusader Strikes have a 33/66/100% chance to apply consecration. I realize this steals heavily from the DK Talent in Unholy, but I mean whatever, they have a Vengeance. Saves us Mana, isn't available to other specs, and gives some minor flavour to a ridiculously bland talent.
On first though such thing will bring another wave of T_T about the percious green geared battlegrounds "balance", but on second, such thing would make retri PvP dmg less bursty, but more sustaneable + nice utility vs. rogues, plate users and so. Although we kinda already have smtn like this wiht Judge and DS crits, but that's hardly "on demand".
But hey, they give us ranged holy nuke with 45% flat dmg bonuses from talents and gear, and nerfed our strictly PvE talents in order to do that. Go figure.
And all those % bonuses to Crusader Strike.. keeping it at 100% wep and making it holy dmg will do that much better by me.
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On the SoB recoil matter, i'm really concerned with that Ghostcrowler quote. Even on encounter trivial as Loatheb, i had to miss 1 on every 3 or 4 judgements in order to not kill myself and i had one of the holy paladins babysitting me.. guess what that did to my dps for the fight. I killed myself on Gluth the same raid, but i guess i shouldn't judge on decimate Vesperon landing isn't such an issue for me tbh, if the raid plays the encounter well.
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.
In WAR each class on each side (Order and Chaos) has a mirrored, nearly identical class on the other side which only has differently named abilities and otherwise functions the same way. As a matter of fact WAR's resource system is by far superior to WoW mana, it is fast-regenerating and rotations are effectively limited by cooldowns.
Does anyone have any parses from the PTR Patchwerk DPS test after the Sanctity of Battle change was implemented? I'm trying to get a rough estimate how much of an increase the addition of CS to RV would be.
Edit: I'm using this formula on Live parses to try to get a ballpark figure. It attempts to account for the Fanaticism, RV, and Sanctity of Battle changes.
From the limited amounts of parses I've seen and computed, adding CS to 3.1's RV is still worse to Live's RV (about 85-90% as good). However, it's a large buff to the current PTR version (26-30% better).
And all those % bonuses to Crusader Strike.. keeping it at 100% wep and making it holy dmg will do that much better by me.
You'd get too much QQ'ing on the forums for that (or Holy weapon damage for Divine Storm). Personally I'd rather do something like this instead of having us zap every mob under the sun with Exorcism.
All hail judgement bug, its made its return to some extent. I've been monitoring for several occasions in pvp when some form of CC lands on you same time you cast judgement, cooldown starts to roll but nothing happens. This is irrelevant from pve point of view, since there rarely is something that suddenly stops you from acting, but I still find it worth mentioning. In my testings it has been very regular. I cant try this on PTR because I have no access, but if someone who can get on PTR could try it and give some results? It would be nice to get this totally fixed for 3.1
This is not the regular judgement bug, it has existed since the days of vanilla WoW if I remember correctly. Same thing with Holy Shock - annoying, but seemingly unfixable.
The failed judgement is really easy to see when fighting Wailing Winds in the Frostfloe deep cave. If you lead off with judgement, it won't take long for one of those guys to hit you with squall right after you cast, causing the spell to fail entirely. No damage, no mana return, no combat log entry. Pretty annoying.
That would stray from them not wanting us to use consecrate in the first place.
They know we can't compete without Consecrate. It adds >500dps on single targets.
It is also a horrible PVP burst ability due to static placement, cooldown, and high mana cost. If they balance our dps around Consecrate it is better for overall game balance.
Balancing our single target dps around an aoe ability?
As far as my experiences tell me our multitarget dps is a bit on the high side as it is, if consecration were to be buffed it might go overboard...
In my opinion it would be better to balance our dps more to our single target abilities, so we're not crippled as a dps when we come across an encounter that doesn't allow for any aoe.
Of course the problem then is pvp balancing... In my opinion making crusader strike crits proc RV might be the thing we need.
This is not the regular judgement bug, it has existed since the days of vanilla WoW if I remember correctly. Same thing with Holy Shock - annoying, but seemingly unfixable.
Unfixable? There is a simple solution for this, just increase the missile speed as they did it to our Hammer of Wrath.
Another point about all our mana regen potentially being tied to a buffed JotW... just as a re-surfaced judgement bug or getting stunned as you judge will cause you to lose your mana and CD without the damage, mana return, or replenishment... often it seems if I judge as a mob is about to die, the spell will go off (cost mana + start the CD), but not give me any mana return or replenishment if the target dies just after I cast it.
Increased missile speed might help, although I think it's more of a client/server latency issue... but even if we don't get the damage, I'd like to see the mana return tied to the cast, not the judgement hitting. If that is our only source of mana return (at 30% or whatever), missing the mana return from 1 or 2 bugged judges will be disastrous.
(Of course, Blizz may want to adjust the value of +hit in this way? Although I doubt that is intentional or planned on their part.)
Balancing our single target dps around an aoe ability?
As far as my experiences tell me our multitarget dps is a bit on the high side as it is, if consecration were to be buffed it might go overboard...
It's been mentioned time and time again that they could implement a single target consecration replica and chain the cooldowns, something like pillar of flame at Zul'jin. The idea is very solid as a PvP unusable ability to balance PvE dps around. Why it hasn't been implemented yet? Well, at the end of the day no matter how logical something is it's not in our hand.
I'm still a fan of having CS refresh Seal of Vengeance, so we apply the seal at the start of a fight and then switch... takes out pvp usuability (for the most part) and ups our raid dps.
Formally Xyrm/Zurm, the Ret Pally. Now playing my rogue, Zyrm, more casually with RL friends.
Another point about all our mana regen potentially being tied to a buffed JotW... just as a re-surfaced judgement bug or getting stunned as you judge will cause you to lose your mana and CD without the damage, mana return, or replenishment... often it seems if I judge as a mob is about to die, the spell will go off (cost mana + start the CD), but not give me any mana return or replenishment if the target dies just after I cast it.
The Judgement "bug" (if you cast Judgement right as you get stunned or the target dies, you get a cooldown on Judgement but no mana return or damage) isn't that bad, it maybe happens once a month or so.
I'd rather them do what is the easiest solution to SA mana loss (JotW to 25% or 30%) rather than mix in CS adding Cons or CS refreshing a SoV stack.
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.'
I'm still a fan of having CS refresh Seal of Vengeance, so we apply the seal at the start of a fight and then switch... takes out pvp usuability (for the most part) and ups our raid dps.
Same here. From the top of my head, the DPS increase it would provide might actually match the increase we need quite nicely. If it doesn't, well, there's always those numerous % damage increase talents we have as easy knobs to turn to balance it with.
I'd rather them do what is the easiest solution to SA mana loss (JotW to 25% or 30%) rather than mix in CS adding Cons or CS refreshing a SoV stack.
I think these were more ideas of how to make CS interesting and address our lagging DPS as opposed to mana consumption.
That being said, ever since Blizzard embraced the idea of Seals being weapon imbues last patch I think we can rule out the idea of the whole "SoV/CS twist". Back when they were our 30 second combat buffs that were originally intended to be switched often based on the problem at hand, yes. Nowadays I just don't see it happening. We're pretty much supposed to be picking one seal and sticking with it, hence the long duration and relatively high mana cost.
I think these were more ideas of how to make CS interesting and address our lagging DPS as opposed to mana consumption.
That being said, ever since Blizzard embraced the idea of Seals being weapon imbues last patch I think we can rule out the idea of the whole "SoV/CS twist". Back when they were our 30 second combat buffs that were originally intended to be switched often based on the problem at hand, yes. Nowadays I just don't see it happening. We're pretty much supposed to be picking one seal and sticking with it, hence the long duration and relatively high mana cost.
This does seem to take away from the number of possible things you can do with Seals though. For example, if the Minor Glyph of the Wise was upped to make Seal of Wisdom completely free, it could potentially be an Aspect of the Viper-ish help for Ret mana problems
03/20/09, 6:17 PM
Vesperon landing isn't such an issue for me tbh, if the raid plays the encounter well.
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