Combat Guide for Cata [12/01/2011] - Page 6

Avatara · 01/05/11, 8:39 PM

Originally Posted by Aldriana

Sure. My point is that 6% isn't a large damage reduction, particularly on top of a feint. Assuming, say, a 50k AoE, you reduce it to 25k via feint and 2/2 Improved Recuperate thus gives you an extra 1500 damage reduction. If we further posit that you have about 120k HP raid buffed, the two ticks of Recuperate will also heal you for about 7200 HP, giving a total benefit of a bit under 9k healing/damage reduction.

Of course, two ticks of a Dense Embersilk Bandage will heal 80% as much, faster, for similar personal DPS loss, meaning that its a 2 point talent that makes Recuperate about as good as bandaging. You'll pardon me if I refrain from characterizing that as a good talent.

Your maths is wrong. Improved Recuperate is 4%, not the 3% you seem to think it is. This means it heals for 4800 a tick with 120k hp, or 48000 for a 5 point finisher. This is increased even further if you take Quickening. You are also taking 6% less damage from all sources while it is up.

It is also not channelled, so can be used at the same time as a bandage, or can be used while on the move when you need to run out, etc. It is, in fact, a very powerful talent, and it would not surprise me to see it nerfed next patch.

• Aldriana · 01/05/11, 9:10 PM

I'd like to point out that the point I was responding to specifically referred to using a 1 CP recuperate to reduce the damage of an incoming AoE, so I was running the numbers for that. Which is not to say that the numbers in other situations aren't relevant, just that they have nothing to do with the point I was making.

In terms of the actual amount of healing: I haven't actually seen any testing as to whether Improved Recuperate's "+2% healing" is 2% per tick or 2% per heal. Even assuming it's per tick and thus it does heal 4800 every 3 seconds... okay, so what? 1600 healing per second at the expend of 1k personal DPS still doesn't strike me as a particularly compelling value proposition.

My point is this: recuperate heals at a rate - and at a personal DPS cost - that is similar to bandaging. Sure, it has some other advantages - you can use it while moving, while taking damage, etc. - but its still on the order of bandaging. And I ask you: in all of ICC, how many times did you stop to bandage during boss fights? I'm guessing its a small number. Even assuming you Recuperate five times as often as you bandaged - owing to its greater utility, even though its no stronger as a heal - I'm betting its still a small number. And if you're only going to use an ability very rarely, how much value is there in talenting it? Some, certainly, but not a whole heck of a lot. So while you can call it a good talent if you want, I for one am inclined to disagree.

Avatara · 01/05/11, 9:28 PM

Originally Posted by Aldriana

I'd like to point out that the point I was responding to specifically referred to using a 1 CP recuperate to reduce the damage of an incoming AoE, so I was running the numbers for that. Which is not to say that the numbers in other situations aren't relevant, just that they have nothing to do with the point I was making.

In terms of the actual amount of healing: I haven't actually seen any testing as to whether Improved Recuperate's "+2% healing" is 2% per tick or 2% per heal. Even assuming it's per tick and thus it does heal 4800 every 3 seconds... okay, so what? 1600 healing per second at the expend of 1k personal DPS still doesn't strike me as a particularly compelling value proposition.

My point is this: recuperate heals at a rate - and at a personal DPS cost - that is similar to bandaging. Sure, it has some other advantages - you can use it while moving, while taking damage, etc. - but its still on the order of bandaging. And I ask you: in all of ICC, how many times did you stop to bandage during boss fights? I'm guessing its a small number. Even assuming you Recuperate five times as often as you bandaged - owing to its greater utility, even though its no stronger as a heal - I'm betting its still a small number. And if you're only going to use an ability very rarely, how much value is there in talenting it? Some, certainly, but not a whole heck of a lot. So while you can call it a good talent if you want, I for one am inclined to disagree.

You cannot compare ICC healing to Cata, because mana is actually a resource now and self-heals are a lot more important.

Improved Recuperate does change Recuperate from 2% to 4%, so with the 6% damage reduction it over doubles the power of the ability. I would guess at some point it will become a pretty much useless talent, but for now it has a high value due to the large amount of melee damage taken and the strain on healer mana.

• Aldriana · 01/05/11, 9:59 PM

Okay, fine. How many times have you bandaged in a raid since Loatheb at level 60? Its a small number no matter how you want to try to define it.

ieatpaperbag · 01/06/11, 8:57 AM

You may be arguing over relative terms and over exaggerating how strained healers are. While the ability itself is useful in the right places, it shouldn’t be defaulted to automatically. If you are really trying to save healer mana, you should focus first on avoiding unnecessary damage and reducing unavoidable damage with Feint, CoS, and Vanish. Doing this makes recuperate significantly helpful and a good trade off in only parts of a few encounters which also means you really are not helping by using Recuperate for healable damage for a DPS reduction (some encounters are just as tight on DPS as they are on healer mana). Remember that the rogue class is fundamentally a DPS class and while it is top priority to stay alive, you probably should not be hitting your self heal every time you take any damage and instead use good judgment as to when your healers are actually strained.

Eddogg · 01/06/11, 10:27 AM

New changes incoming soon. Currently on the PTR it seems.

Combat Potency now also affects Main Gauche attacks.

Revealing Strike now increases effectiveness of your next offensive finishing move on the target by 35%, up from 20%.

Bane|Elune · 01/06/11, 10:38 AM

Originally Posted by Eddogg

New changes incoming soon. Currently on the PTR it seems.

Combat Potency now also affects Main Gauche attacks.

Revealing Strike now increases effectiveness of your next offensive finishing move on the target by 35%, up from 20%.

Good to hear, definitely a start to what Blue posted about bumping up Combat.

I wonder now if this is their solution, or just the start. As fast as Combat Potency goes, I can see capping out on energy becoming more and more commonplace.

Fogkin · 01/06/11, 12:04 PM

Given the new bump to combat mastery proc'ing combat potency, how will this change its EP value? Is haste still going to be our top value outside of exp cap? Also will the boost in RvS effect which glyphs we use now?

BlueBells · 01/06/11, 12:05 PM

Originally Posted by Bane|Elune

Good to hear, definitely a start to what Blue posted about bumping up Combat.

I wonder now if this is their solution, or just the start. As fast as Combat Potency goes, I can see capping out on energy becoming more and more commonplace.

Especially during AR, energy capping might be unavoidable now at some points.

The most important thing about these changes will be to understand how the value of mastery is affected. It seems pretty evident that it's going to pass crit rating in terms of desirability, but just how much?

Likewise, the changes to RvS seem to also increase the value of crit rating, but at a quick glance, it looks like not as much as mastery.

Overall, very excited for these changes...just hope they make it live.

• Aldriana · 01/06/11, 12:19 PM

Perhaps I'm misreading the patch note, but so far as I know Combat Potency *already* could proc off Main Gauche hits - see, for instance, the following post from last September:

Originally Posted by koaschten

I got back to re-visit the MainGauche and Combat Potency issue. The last build seems to have fixed this and MainGauche is properly proccing Combat Potency (IF you wield an offhand that is). Styles still don't seem to generate MainGauche procs and as a result no possible Combat Potency procs.

Hence, as near as I can tell, the only relevant PvE change in those patch notes is the buff to Revealing Strike, which works out to be about a 1.5% DPS increase for Combat and has no effect on the cycle.

Somehow I expected more.

Bane|Elune · 01/06/11, 12:22 PM

I realize the irony of this statement as I say it in my head and type it, but why would they then announce that Combat Potency now procs off MG attacks if it were there already. Do we have a link to a log that proves it?

Druss · 01/06/11, 12:23 PM

Originally Posted by Bane|Elune

Good to hear, definitely a start to what Blue posted about bumping up Combat.

I wonder now if this is their solution, or just the start. As fast as Combat Potency goes, I can see capping out on energy becoming more and more commonplace.

Yes - energy capping certainly looks to be (even more) of an issue for combat with this change. Could it mean that the relative merits of haste for combat would change to reflect that if you have too much haste you simply won't be able to get the benefit of it. This has been considered and dismissed before but might the recent change mentioned here mean the point needs to be reconsidered?

Jestyr991 · 01/06/11, 12:24 PM

Originally Posted by Bane|Elune

Good to hear, definitely a start to what Blue posted about bumping up Combat.

I wonder now if this is their solution, or just the start. As fast as Combat Potency goes, I can see capping out on energy becoming more and more commonplace.

By running in and out of the dummy to avoid auto attacks and using my favorite addon ever - Eavesdrop - I was able to see that this is live, as it was on beta.

The order of these attacks is; OH, MH, SS, MG, CP, MH.

/edit:

The main point to MG as a talent was to get these things to proc, and to make mastery look decent with both [Deadly Poison] making you hit with your main hand poison and CP procs.

However I do believe as i stated before...this has been live since beta, though I am not 100% sure.

ieatpaperbag · 01/06/11, 12:34 PM

It was commented on the MMO post of the PTR changes that a lot of these changes are just tooltip fixes to reflect the many hotfixes of recent, this makes sense looking at several of the "changes" for other classes. Given some of the changes that were alluded to in this blue post, it's safe to say there will be more.

Machinae · 01/06/11, 12:45 PM

Is it just me or is this kind of change only going to make Combat even more "spammy", this was something a Rogue beta tester from Paragon went into some detail about in his feedback yet it was never acknowledged by Blizzard. Not only that, but surely in future content when Mastery levels are much higher, Combat Rogues are simply going to have too much energy to deal with. The fact they remarked that the current design is "fine" really has decimated any hopes I had for what has until this expansion been my preferred spec.

I know in modelling terms Combat is not that far behind Assassination, but even a cursory examination of WoL parses portrays a much greater gap between the two -- as a result I really fail to see how this rather dubious tweak is going to make Combat a viable choice for anyone interested in min/maxing. Especially when, and I'm aware this is purely subjective, the Combat rotation is rather grotesque in comparison to Assassination, and the situational benefits the spec brings minimal in current content.