Spectral Deflection talent

[Saverem]

Has anyone figured out how much damage this reduces?

If it takes up 2 charges, then I'm guessing 40%?

Also, is it additive? (straight 40% reduction or 20% and then 20%)

[Raugnaut]

From my understanding, its not quite 40%. Lets say the hit you would normally take without BS would be 100k. With BS, its reduced by 20%, to 80k. I believe it is then reduced by another 20% with Spectral Deflection, to 64k. I could be wrong though.

[Jellospally]

Has anyone figured out how much damage this reduces?

If it takes up 2 charges, then I'm guessing 40%?

Also, is it additive? (straight 40% reduction or 20% and then 20%)

be it .4 or .2 and .2 it won't matter.

You will never pick this talent. You will never change your talents outside Bonestorm v Purg the others are set in stone and will not change.

[Museigen]

Hrm, I understand every tier is pretty set in stone but I kind of like blood taps feel over Ossuary. Is the difference between max RP and DS RP reduction versus extra runes really big enough for "Set in stone" between them?

Edit: Obviously mean Ossuary versus Blood Tap, not Rapid Decomp. Derp.

[Raugnaut]

be it .4 or .2 and .2 it won't matter.

You will never pick this talent. You will never change your talents outside Bonestorm v Purg the others are set in stone and will not change.

While Foul Bulwark allows for significantly more TTL, it doesn't offer any mitigation bonuses. I've heard that there isn't as much spike damage in Legion as compared to now, so wouldn't Will of the Necropolis be better for both mitigation AND death prevention?

[Jellospally]

While Foul Bulwark allows for significantly more TTL, it doesn't offer any mitigation bonuses. I've heard that there isn't as much spike damage in Legion as compared to now, so wouldn't Will of the Necropolis be better for both mitigation AND death prevention?

No because Will got changed. It no longer reduces the hit which brought you below 35% by 20% but instead reduces the portion that brought you under 35% by 20%. So its LITERALLY dog shit.

100 hp. Get hit for 80. Will reduce 15 by 20% which brings the total hit to 77. Thats pretty shit. Even 100 to 0 is only reducing 35 by 20% which is a hit for 93 instead of 100.

Will is AT MOST 7% DR passive. That is going from 100 to 0 every swing. There is way less spiking so you will not hit Will range that often which makes the talent even worse.

Also any damage you reduce with Will reduces how much DS will heal for and how much Bone Shield will absorb.

If you look at it from a EHP perspective Foul is about 2x stronger in all scenarios (since you will hover between 7-10 stacks(the instant you hit 6 you would Marrow so generally 14-20% HP buff at all times). You also technically "heal" when you Marrowrend and gain stacks. Because you stay at the same HP% that you were but gain max HP so that means your current HP goes up.

Basically you can say blizz fucked up at designing shit.

[Raugnaut]

Hrm, I understand every tier is pretty set in stone but I kind of like blood taps feel over Ossuary. Is the difference between max RP and DS RP reduction versus extra runes really big enough for "Set in stone" between them?

Edit: Obviously mean Ossuary versus Blood Tap, not Rapid Decomp. Derp.

Ossuary grants the equivalent of .25 of a rune's RP generation value for EVERY DS, or the equivalent of.. 20% rune regeneration rate or something? Rough napkin math. The extra rune pooling will allow you to get out 3x DS in a 5 second window (DS, DS, Spend Rune, DS, for 4.5 seconds at 0% haste at full RP. Its not possible unless you are at VERY high haste values otherwise).

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No because Will got changed. It no longer reduces the hit which brought you below 35% by 20% but instead reduces the portion that brought you under 35% by 20%. So its LITERALLY dog shit.

100 hp. Get hit for 100. Will reduces 35 of the damage by 20%.

Again, there is no/little spike damage in Legion according to my understanding. Granted, I do not have a complete understanding, but, why would you be unable to, say, stay at 35%, allow healers to keep you around there, and constantly benefit from the 20% damage reduction in a well-cooridinated group?

[Jellospally]

Again, there is no/little spike damage in Legion according to my understanding. Granted, I do not have a complete understanding, but, why would you be unable to, say, stay at 35%, allow healers to keep you around there, and constantly benefit from the 20% damage reduction in a well-cooridinated group?

You 1. will die if you are 35%. 2. there is lots of boss mechanics that just won't allow you to sit this low. 3. coordinated groups couldn't even pull that off.

You will never hit Will range playing effectively unless you fucked up or every healer is out of range of you for a long time. At that point you need to play better. You don't talent around messing up.

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Hrm, I understand every tier is pretty set in stone but I kind of like blood taps feel over Ossuary. Is the difference between max RP and DS RP reduction versus extra runes really big enough for "Set in stone" between them?

Edit: Obviously mean Ossuary versus Blood Tap, not Rapid Decomp. Derp.

Ossuary has so many reasons it is better than Blood Tap... I'll let this from Troxism explain it better than I can.

Quoting Troxism here: (from a write up he has, gonna be long)

"Doing the math we end up with 7.46 DS/min instead of 8.4 if we substitute 45 for the cost, so a net gain of about 0.94 DS/min on ST. More on AoE, and obviously varies by situation, but it’s at least a benchmark.

This gives us 0.94*517.5*45711 = 222,361 damage per minute or 3,706 DPS.

Blood Tap?

Since we assumed Marrowrend every 10 seconds, that means 3.3 Bone Shield charges used per 10 seconds on average, or 10/3.3 = 3 seconds for 1 charge, or 1 charge per 3 seconds. This means for every 3 seconds of cooldown down for Blood Tap, effectively 4 seconds pass instead, so 60/1.33 or 45 seconds cooldown instead of 60 on Blood Tap. So it gives 1 rune every 45 seconds, which would be used for Heart Strike, which is 282% weapon damage every 60/45 = 376% HS weapon damage per minute. It also gives 18 RP * 60/45 = 24 RP or 24/45 (no Ossuary remember) = 0.53 DS/min, so 276% DS weapon damage per minute. This gives a total of 298,035 damage or 4,967 DPS.

Now on more targets, the DS/min ratios stay similar, since you generate more RP on AoE to begin with (since you would have Heartbreaker there) meaning both would scale with AoE. DPS wise, Blood Tap does start to pull ahead.
So what is the problem? Well let us look at assumptions.

First of all, I overlook the fact that you do get 1 ‘free’ Blood Tap on the pull. This might make it seem pretty good.

The problem is I am also completely ignoring the fact that Ossuary gives max RP, and by reducing DS cost, lets you bank 3 instead of 2 Death Strikes. This isn’t something you can give a numbers value to, but it’s pretty significant. In addition, certain set bonuses and legendaries benefit from Ossuary significantly. The reality is survival wise there isn’t much contest between the two. Blood Tap also has the problem of taking a while to ‘convert’ to actual Death Strikes in terms of GCDs, so it’s totally useless as a banking tool in it’s current form. As the active talent that requires more paying attention and tracking (You want to keep Bone Shield charges high regardless even with no talents since it gives you more wiggle room later if you need to do extra Heart Strikes), it doesn’t make sense that Blood Tap is literally only useful for AoE DPS and always significantly worse for survival."

[Raugnaut]

You 1. will die if you are 35%. 2. there is lots of boss mechanics that just won't allow you to sit this low. 3. coordinated groups couldn't even pull that off.

You will never hit Will range playing effectively unless you fucked up or every healer is out of range of you for a long time. At that point you need to play better. You don't talent around messing up.

I must point out that you would effectively have 42% health, but point taken.

[Saverem]

be it .4 or .2 and .2 it won't matter.

You will never pick this talent. You will never change your talents outside Bonestorm v Purg the others are set in stone and will not change.

Uh, I'm using this talent and have been using it.... Sooo....

[Resurgo]

Uh, I'm using this talent and have been using it.... Sooo....

...sooo... you're doing it wrong.

Sorry to sound snarky there, however, they've laid out all the reasons why it's a bad talent. So if you continue doing so, that's on you *shrug*

[Saverem]

...sooo... you're doing it wrong.

Sorry to sound snarky there, however, they've laid out all the reasons why it's a bad talent. So if you continue doing so, that's on you *shrug*

Which talent is supposedly better? Soulgorge looks absoultely worthless and the only OK part about Rapid Decomposition is you generate 20% more RP which would be a better talent to have while tanking trash packs but not the actual boss.

I'd rather have an extra 20% mitigation on hard hitting attacks.

[Coldvibes]

In addition to generating far less RP to gain back lost HP, the bone shield stack loss is going to be significant... especially on progression where bosses can hit hard AND fast.

I tried Spec. Deflect. on Botanist 2 weeks ago and let me tell you, spectral deflection outright also made ossuary a worthless talent because I could never stay above 5 stacks in p3.

[Khiyone]

Yes, don't ever play with Spectral Deflection. As SD ignores the ICD on charges, on a very hard boss your Bone Shield will eventually drop (outside of ridiculous haste levels) and then you'll just get globalled. On easier bosses, the overall mitigation you get will be reduced, and so you'd be better off with Rapid Decomposition again. Also, consider that since you'll be forced to basically drop Heart Strike from your rotation, your Death Strike count will be much lower. As mentioned above, you also need to pair it with weak talents - Blood Tap and Will of the Necropolis.

[Jellospally]

Which talent is supposedly better? Soulgorge looks absoultely worthless and the only OK part about Rapid Decomposition is you generate 20% more RP which would be a better talent to have while tanking trash packs but not the actual boss.

I'd rather have an extra 20% mitigation on hard hitting attacks.

Except now you are Marrowrending more which is now 16 less RP per EXTRA marrowrend(if its single target, if its more ITS EVEN MORE RP loss) you have to cast in the fight. It now make Foul Bulwark weaker. Now you are making Red Thirst weaker because you are genning less RP and spending less. Ossuary now becomes useless because you will practically never be over 5 stacks. You do less dps.

Rapid Decomp has plenty of reason to be used single target. DnD is a single target increase. 15% more RP is very strong single target. That is more Death Strikes per minute. How is that bad? If we lose the benefit of literally every talent row besides the last one because of picking Spectral Deflection why would I want it?

[Deleted]

Is there a priority list for Minor Traits regarding what relics to use? I understand item-level trumps all, but it might allow one to target specific boss drops in Mythic+ dungeons.
Something like:

(Survival) Vampiric Fangs > Iron Heart > Meat Shield > Grim Perseverance > [other]

[Tojara]

You're going to have DnD up close to 100% of the time. It's a single target DPS increase and an AoE DPS increase. On the survival front it gives you more death strikes, which is amazing. More death strikes also feeds into the loop of getting more VB through red thirst (which everybody should be taking anyway).

Ossuary is a no brainer. Blood tap might actually be useful in a world where death strike still cost runes. If blood tap actually gave you on demand runic power it might actually be a far more attractive talent (if the numbers and CD on the ability were tuned right). Keep in mind Ossuary for whatever reason gives 25 extra max runic power instead of 10. Being able to use up to three death strikes at once is pretty useful, in addition one of the artifact traits encourages (at least from a DPS perspective) for you to use multiple death strikes in order to get the damage boost from it.

Already said multiple times but the only wiggle room we have in talents right now are with purgatory/bonestorm, and obviously the level 75 tier as it's mostly utility oriented. One of the major problems with our talents is that the passive route actually feeds into the other passives quite well, while some of the active options are pretty counter intuitive. Some of our talents could actually be an option compared to what's considered the best if they actually changed the numbers of a few. Unfortunately a lot of them need complete overhauls.

[Deleted]

Spectral Deflection has its place.

A common argument against SD is that you fall behind on Bone Shield charges because the argument assumes that is procs constantly (and if it does, there is no chance to keep up BS so it is a very bad idea to spec SD) but it ignores situations where damage can fluctuate or be bursty for short periods of time.

This is basically the whole "DS/min is king" argument all over that I am sure people are familiar with, but the gist is: Sometimes having less but bigger DS trumps having more but smaller DS. Timing matters. And the same is true here: You sacrifice DPS and 1-2 DS/min (and it shouldn't be much more than that or SD procs too often to make it feasible) for an extra cushion of damage reduction when the bursty parts happen. That said, Vampiric Blood and DS pooling also combat predictable, short burst frames so you would have to run into situations where those are not enough for SD to make the cut (i.e. VB is on CD from something else or the boss stuns you so you rely on passive DR etc).

And relatedly: Red Thirst is certainly a good talent but people can also fall into the habit of looking at the uptime (and how to optimize it) when looking at how you can make it fit into damage patterns is a lot more useful. For example, if a boss has high burst every 60 secs then RT is going to let you use VB for every single one of them but that is true whether it reduces your CD to 45 secs or 58 secs if you only want to use it every 60 secs anyway (so keep that in mind when you are hunting for the corresponding legendary). Then again, RT has the dubious honor of sharing the tier with two truly awful CDs so anyone who campaigns for RT to be the 100% go to talent pretty much wins by default.

[Zemask]

Keep in mind Ossuary for whatever reason gives 25 extra max runic power instead of 10.

Actually, ossuary gives you 10 max RP, it's not a bug.
The extra 15 come from blood spec ; this was added like 1 or 2 months ago.

[Tojara]

Actually, ossuary gives you 10 max RP, it's not a bug.
The extra 15 come from blood spec ; this was added like 1 or 2 months ago.

Oh well, I certainly didn't pay attention to that passive lol.