Patch 5.3 PTR. Attonement Nerf

[Anastacy]

Which is what makes Disc painfully obvious as the better choice between Disc and Holy. And you are just talking about the glyph, not the full arsenal of Atonement. Its rather significant.

While 5 seconds can mean a lot in terms of "kill" vs. "not kill," how far does it go towards gearing for regen...was my question...that you missed.

[Deleted]

Especially with the jump in gear from upgrades, my team is even less likely to run into enrages than we were before and we weren't running into enrages much before either, unless too many people died. I can safely say nobody gives a damn about my dps and I've never been told "wow saph, without you dpsing we wouldn't have been able to kill this boss". When things get hot, at least in 25 man, I trust my own triage to do better than atonement, and my primary goal in an encounter is to heal, not to dps. Atonement is only one of the tools I have, not the answer to all questions.

So, myself, I have dropped the said glyph. Before, I was swapping from inner sanctum (used mostly on council hc) to binding heal, which I find occasionally great for quick triage. I dont think the glyph is worth the major slot, mostly because smite is not really the bulk of disc dps: on an average of 30%, the 20% extra from the glyph basically means 6% of my dps. I'll take a disc doing 60 k dps on a regular fight (though myself I never got to that kind of value, and I suspect you need to spend a lot of time doing only atonement for it, on top of having your gear itemized for atonement) - 5%*60k=3k dps. My raid dps last night was 2.8 mil on megaera, 3.3 mil on council, for ex: 3k dps means 0.001%, or, over an 8 mins fight, 0,48% of boss hp. When things went south so badly to wipe on that, I didn't have time to smite anyway.

[Syri277]

guys I'm having a hard time interpreting the Penance change (or maybe I don't want to believe this happened) :S
basically they nerfed its damage by 10% and the healing output of its Atonement by 10%? so it's a double nerf to Penance boss now?

[Deleted]

Using penance offensively has been nerfed idd. Using it defensively has been buffed.

[Noradin]

guys I'm having a hard time interpreting the Penance change (or maybe I don't want to believe this happened) :S
basically they nerfed its damage by 10% and the healing output of its Atonement by 10%? so it's a double nerf to Penance boss now?

Yes. By 19% of its previous value (if you assume no change in gear which should go without saying, but people still argue that better gear will negate nerfs, which is a somewhat lopsided argument).
The difference between defensive and offensive penance in pure numbers should be 27% for healing.
Note that both healing values are modified by mastery (the same way at that) but damage is not.

[Kelesti]

For clarification purposes, is that 27% with or without Grace, Noradin?

[Noradin]

For clarification purposes, is that 27% with or without Grace, Noradin?

That assumes either full Grace in both cases or compares only the first tick if there is no Grace.

Building up Grace will widen the gap, so its really a lower limit for the difference, but since Grace is a secondary effect and benefit of defensive Penance that wasn't changed, I thought it better to keep it out of the comparison.

Some other effects that would change those numbers would be Twist of Fate, Power Infusion, and damage increasing buffs (all of those favor offensive Penance), obviously there are also circumstances where offensive Penance is worse than those numbers or won't work at all.

[Deleted]

Offensive penance is still better for aoe healing, but now glyphed BH and PoM are a priority for high HPS moments. Defensive penance even on an un-graced target also benefits from 1 grace stack on the 2nd tick and 2 grace stacks on the 3rd tick. That means penance MUST be used defensively when anyone has enough of a deficit for maximum return. However the smart healing from atonement makes offensive penance better than defensive penance in most aoe situations, excepts when the boss is throwing the kitchen sink at your raid so you can be sure that single target healing someone with penance won't overheal.

Otherwise the change is minor. It just means you have to consider defensive penance sometimes and you have to think of grace. I think this is definitely an improvement for the disc playstyle.

Numbers wise:

Defensive penance heals for a minimum of (1+1.1+1.2)/3 = 110% its base value and a maximum of 156% its base value (full evangelism + grace)

Offensive penance heals for a minimum of (1+1.04+1.04)/3 = 102.7% of its base value and a maximum of 156% its base value (full evangelism + graced target)

With full evangelism on a target without grace penance heals for 132% its base value defensively minimum, while offensive penance heals for only 120% its base value

In other words as long as you have evangelism stacked even if a target has no grace if you are sure you won't overheal it is always better to heal them directly with penance rather than rely on atonement. The evangelism stack and the smart healing outweigh the increased healing output when no one has a big fat health deficit. When the tank it makes sense to cast penance offensively only while you don't have evangelism.

Basically atonement with penance is now a decision like it should be and not a no-brainer.

[Noradin]

There was no change as to the interaction between defensive Penance and Grace and even before defensive Penance was better when you had need to put a lot of healing on one target - because you would most likely follow up with more spells anyway or there would not have been any reason to get their health back up fast. Unfortunately this emergency reponse (PW:S, Penance, IF+GH) was nerfed by the BT change and by the crit change without compensation for IF before that.

[Deleted]

But now even when you won't heal that target again, it is better to penance them. The smart healing and the fact that offensive penance healed for roughly the same as defensive penance on an ungraced target, meant that it was pointless to use penance defensively UNLESS you wanted to add grace to the target.

After the patch defensive penance is noticeably bigger than offensive penance, so regardless of stacking grace and regardless of whether the target has grace if there is an available target and you have evangelism stacked defensive penance is more HPS. So rather than using it defensively for emergency you should actively look for targets to cast penance on.

[Noradin]

Yes that's what my numbers said in the post above...

[nightfalls]

One would be stupid to look at things in a vacuum, as well.

Who else would be surprised to find out Smite glyph shaved off more than 5-10 seconds of a boss kill?

That's not the only thing too, for instance, killing some adds even marginally faster, or phasing a boss marginally faster could potentially dramatically reduce your raid's damage intake.

[Anastacy]

That's not the only thing too, for instance, killing some adds even marginally faster, or phasing a boss marginally faster could potentially dramatically reduce your raid's damage intake.

Sure; which is why I called for a "no use-y broad generalizations to make-y points that 'apply' for all situations!" attitude.

On the flipside, more DPS isn't always as great either (in very specific cases) where it doesn't allow you to utilize your mana cooldowns/trinket procs an additional time, which would require...gearing for more regen! See how easy this shit is to flip around?

The question that still hasn't been answered is: How much mana can you spend in 5 seconds? Answer: Not a lot.

Oh, and a second question: How much DPS does the Smite glyph *realistically* add (not optimally, mind you...*realistically*). 20% extra damage on (let's be generous) about 50% of the casts from an ability that does about 30% of my damage. *How much is that?*...

...

...anybody?

[nightfalls]

On the flipside, more DPS isn't always as great either (in very specific cases) where it doesn't allow you to utilize your mana cooldowns/trinket procs an additional time, which would require...gearing for more regen! See how easy this shit is to flip around?

The bold part is where you're completely wrong, anyone worth their raid spot will know that more DPS is almost always, always great.

So the question you really have to ask yourself is, what are you trading off for Glyph of Smite that's so good that you absolutely need the other glyph?

Personally for what my (alt) disc priest does, it's really nothing. So I go with the Glyph. I won't dispute in some situations I would switch it out though, just has to be the right time/place, and honestly Smite would be a default if I had nothing better.

[edit]

I just actually looked at the priest glyphs to confirm my thoughts. And I think this guy summed it up well:

There's not really an alternative anyway, may as well keep it. Best glyph choices otherwise are Penance, Inner Will, and Binding Heal. Holy Fire glyph is ok but it's not too big an issue to stay in range without it that it's worth keeping another glyph. So then basically you'll find yourself interchanging Smite with Binding Heal or Inner Fire (believe he meant Inner Will, not Inner Fire).

And that's if you decide to use both Binding Heal and Inner Will, and there is a tradeoff with Binding Will also, to the point where in 10m, personally I would probably stick with Smite.

[Deleted]

Inner Fire (believe he meant Inner Will, not Inner Fire).

Actually it's inner sanctum glyph. I'm using it, together with penance and binding. I've never seen self dmg reduction glyphs being especially interesting, but still beats for me the current smite glyph, as I generally prefer using anything else other than smite when HF/penance are on cd (as in mending or a pws or two) unless there's really nothing important to consider in that moment. Nobody in my raid gives a damn about my dps.

[Deleted]

Oh, and a second question: How much DPS does the Smite glyph *realistically* add (not optimally, mind you...*realistically*). 20% extra damage on (let's be generous) about 50% of the casts from an ability that does about 30% of my damage. *How much is that?*...

In 10 man I think it's close to 1.5 secs on a 5 min fight (this is with a hardcore atonement style).

[Anastacy]

The bold part is where you're completely wrong, anyone worth their raid spot will know that more DPS is almost always, always great.

So the question you really have to ask yourself is, what are you trading off for Glyph of Smite that's so good that you absolutely need the other glyph?

Personally for what my (alt) disc priest does, it's really nothing. So I go with the Glyph. I won't dispute in some situations I would switch it out though, just has to be the right time/place, and honestly Smite would be a default if I had nothing better.

[edit]

I just actually looked at the priest glyphs to confirm my thoughts. And I think this guy summed it up well:



And that's if you decide to use both Binding Heal and Inner Will, and there is a tradeoff with Binding Will also, to the point where in 10m, personally I would probably stick with Smite.

Sure, more DPS is always better, but it's not always friendly on the mana cooldowns. Cutting a 5min fight to 4 min could = one less Manatide, for instance (but, hey...Smite glyph isn't that powerful).

This is why blanket statements don't work. There is always a tradeoff to everything.

Somewhat related... Previous guild, after tanks geared up a bit, they got to the point where PSW wasn't consistently breaking on Twins, so I wasn't getting my Rapture mana back (GG avoidance tanking).

If Glyph of Smite is such a huge throughput Glyph (in that, more DPS = shorter fight = less damage taken = less regen needed), how huge is it over...Binding Heal glyph? WS glyph? Inner Sanctum (less damage taken)? All of which are easier to quantify.

And you still didn't touch the "approximately how much damage Smite glyph realistically adds" point yet. If anything, I'd see it causing a real DPS's killing blow to be more overkill (them nasty Executes!)

[nightfalls]

Sure, more DPS is always better, but it's not always friendly on the mana cooldowns. Cutting a 5min fight to 4 min could = one less Manatide, for instance (but, hey...Smite glyph isn't that powerful).

Mana conservation-wise, I'd agree that Smite glyph does nothing, but DPS is always good (if not sometimes worse than alternative glyphs). Most healers don't have glyphs that can even increase DPS a little bit, and most glyphs listed except Penance/Inner Sanctum are situational.

Somewhat related... Previous guild, after tanks geared up a bit, they got to the point where PSW wasn't consistently breaking on Twins, so I wasn't getting my Rapture mana back (GG avoidance tanking).

You can probably get procs from Cosmic Barrage, assuming the same people get hit every time.

---------- Post added 2013-05-27 at 03:52 PM ----------

And you still didn't touch the "approximately how much damage Smite glyph realistically adds" point yet. If anything, I'd see it causing a real DPS's killing blow to be more overkill (them nasty Executes!)

Probably not very much and again depends on the fight (if you use a lot of Smites, you get more DPS. If you don't given the right, you get less). But DPS isn't like healing, yes extraneous heals cause other healers to overheal, but adding DPS, in general, doesn't "take away" from other DPS.

[Noradin]

Oh, and a second question: How much DPS does the Smite glyph *realistically* add (not optimally, mind you...*realistically*). 20% extra damage on (let's be generous) about 50% of the casts from an ability that does about 30% of my damage. *How much is that?*...

...

...anybody?

3% of the damage you did without it :P

---------- Post added 2013-05-27 at 04:20 PM ----------

In 10 man I think it's close to 1.5 secs on a 5 min fight (this is with a hardcore atonement style).

One proc from the Binding Heal glyph can save a raidmember and save the 10min it would take to redo the encounter, now use statistics to weight those time saves with their probability and you get the real relative worth of those glyphs.

I for one seldome use the smite glyph, I even prefer the extra range one (Holy Fire) most of the time, and I'm lazy on some encounters, too, I only swith in glyphs if I believe they make a noticable difference, otherwiese I stay with the standard Penance, Binding Heal, Holy Fire combination that is comfortable on most fights.

[Anastacy]

Mana conservation-wise, I'd agree that Smite glyph does nothing, but DPS is always good (if not sometimes worse than alternative glyphs). Most healers don't have glyphs that can even increase DPS a little bit, and most glyphs listed except Penance/Inner Sanctum are situational.



You can probably get procs from Cosmic Barrage, assuming the same people get hit every time.

---------- Post added 2013-05-27 at 03:52 PM ----------



Probably not very much and again depends on the fight (if you use a lot of Smites, you get more DPS. If you don't given the right, you get less). But DPS isn't like healing, yes extraneous heals cause other healers to overheal, but adding DPS, in general, doesn't "take away" from other DPS.

Well then what are you really arguing? Because I was responding to someone who said Smite glyph = more DPS =gem/reforge for more throughput because fights are shorter = less healing/regen needed.