Why Holy Prism is better than Execution Sentence.

[Mefistophelis]

I found out yesterday myself that Holy Prism is infact ALOT better than Execution Sentence ... but not forever .
It all started when I actually saw someone use it in a dungeon and was curious to how and why is it better .

I found the following formulas in Wowhead (punched in my own numbers and they were correct).

Holy Prism does : 1.428*Spellpower + 16136.5 (20 sec cooldown)
Execution Sentence does : 5.936*Spellpower + 12985 (60 sec cooldown)

Now before you start telling me "WoW look at the damage on Execution Sentence" you have to see the real numbers behind it .
If (and I say IF) you can cast Holy Prism on cooldown then it equals to 4.284*Spellpower +48409.5 (per minute) compared to Execution Sentence's damage it has ALOT higher base damage which means that now it does more damage until we aqcuire better gear .

The Spellpower breakpoint where Execution Sentence becomes equal to Holy Prism and then surpassing it is 21455. Which means you need 42910 Attack Power for that . Which means you will need a total of 21455 Strength to achieve that so you actually need 21268 strength (187 base strength from being level 90) from gear .

If you think I'm being helpful write something good in the comments . If not tell me why .

[marinos]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...el-90-talents)

Check this

[Mefistophelis]

The other guy is just talking and talking without actual math . Here you get the why and how it's better . Read it closer .

[Aceshigh]

I said it somewhere else but I'll say it here again. I have no math but from what I've seen in terms of gameplay ES beats Holy Prism. I've ben able to line up my CDs to have 1 ES do over 400k DMG with no +damage buffs on he boss. I have never had 3 Holy Prism that have come anywhere near close to that. Combine that with that fact that you won't be getting to use HRP on CD because it delays HP generators and causes lost TVs and it falls behind ES further. I realize you'll come back and say that is anecdotal evidence and can't be taken into consideration, but I am consistently seeing ES above HPR on single target. You can't just look at "theoretical dmg of HRP v. theoretical dmg of ES", we've known for a long time that the theoretical dmg of HRP used on CD surpasses ES. Things like #of lost HP or not using HPR on CD to not lose those HP, the ease of lining up ES with our CDs compared to trying to line up HPRs, etc all need to be taken into consideration. I can't do the math on these things, I'm not a math guy, but from playing my paladin basically not stop since release and running all kinds of different things I can say I've seen ES come out ahead on single target pretty consistently.

[Silver-Fox]

I just relearned my talents with Holy Prism. It is alot of fun in dungeons and raids. But I have to stop using it as a quick heal out of combat because then the beams jump from me to enemies and pull the surrounding mobs at me when I just need a few more thousand health to get topped off.

[Deleted]

Pretty nice damage, much lower cooldown and works in every situation - be it single target or AoE.

And it looks like phaser beams.

[Sturmcantor]

I found out yesterday myself that Holy Prism is infact ALOT better than Execution Sentence ... but not forever .
It all started when I actually saw someone use it in a dungeon and was curious to how and why is it better .

I found the following formulas in Wowhead (punched in my own numbers and they were correct).

Holy Prism does : 1.428*Spellpower + 16136.5 (20 sec cooldown)
Execution Sentence does : 5.936*Spellpower + 12985 (60 sec cooldown)

Now before you start telling me "WoW look at the damage on Execution Sentence" you have to see the real numbers behind it .
If (and I say IF) you can cast Holy Prism on cooldown then it equals to 4.284*Spellpower +48409.5 (per minute) compared to Execution Sentence's damage it has ALOT higher base damage which means that now it does more damage until we aqcuire better gear .

The Spellpower breakpoint where Execution Sentence becomes equal to Holy Prism and then surpassing it is 21455. Which means you need 42910 Attack Power for that . Which means you will need a total of 21455 Strength to achieve that so you actually need 21268 strength (187 base strength from being level 90) from gear .

If you think I'm being helpful write something good in the comments . If not tell me why .

In my current ilvl 467 gear, I have 11800 strength. Add another 7k from both of my trinkets proccing. Add 20% for GoAK. For that first ES you have the required 22560 strength to shoot ES past Holy Prism even without considering things like ES lining up with CDs, ES being easier to fit into the rotation without losing holy power, or the advantage of the burst provided by ES.

The big one of those is the the fit into the rotation one.

[Shink]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...el-90-talents)

Check this

I believe that thread more then one with "Why Holy Prism is better than Execution Sentence." as a title

[Meteoric]

If (and I say IF) you can cast Holy Prism on cooldown

This is the limiting factor, really. We have empty GCDs, but they do not necessarily happen at 20-second intervals, so using Prism on cooldown means pushing back other abilities, and using Prism only in otherwise empty GCDs means not using it on cooldown. And as mentioned, ES combines better with procs/cooldowns.

[loki504]

as blizzard told us before there is no talant x is better then y. because es is more burst based(combine with cd can increase the dmg alot). but when your on a boss that does not need alot of burst then hp can be better.

[Meteoric]

as blizzard told us before there is no talant x is better then y.

Well, for one thing, their stated intent for the system doesn't always necessarily play out. In this case I think it has, but generally citing the intent of a system as evidence of what it actually does is dubious.

But moreover here, ES still isn't straight-up better than Holy Prism. ES wins for single-target damage, yes, but Prism provides healing AND damage (whereas ES does healing OR damage), and can be used as an AoE attack. There are legitimate tradeoffs and situational benefits, but Prism pretty definitely does not win for single-target DPS. A similar comparison can be made for Light's Hammer, which is a lovely AoE damage/group survival tool, but distinctly does less single-target damage than ES.

Really, since ES does nothing except damage the one target (and in a pretty backloaded way, at that), that same "no talent is strictly better or worse" principle says Holy Prism can't/shouldn't be better for single-target damage since ES has no other advantages to call its own.

[ZeroEdgeir]

Haven't tested Execution Sentence myself yet (only done some heroics and mostly dailies so far), but I have to say, Holy Prism at least does hit hard. Harder than Hammer of Wrath, flat-out (when you target an enemy with it). Cleaving with it, it hits a bit under HoW, but to up to 5 targets (each hit of which can crit individually).

Since Mastery and Crit are basically on even ground for Ret anyways, if you opt to stack up more Crit than Mastery (which is valid), that could be a bit more deciding factor. Those who go more Mastery heavy (this is AFTER stacking Hit/Exp caps and Haste of course) will be putting more emphasis on CS/HotR and TV/DS damage, and would likely want the longer CD of Execution Sentence, so as not to interfere with those skills as much. Matter of gameplay preference.

I will say Holy Prism has one small bug I dislike: When using it's cleave mechanic (healing a friendly to hit up to 5 enemies), it will shoot through walls, floors, ceilings... can pull extra enemies if not careful (like say, on the boats in the Horde variant of the Theramore Isle Scenarion). Also, when used on a single enemy, it will heal enemy faction players too. That, and it needs to stop seeking out critters to kill. That is confusing/scary at times when you see 1-3 beams shoot off to one side, only to see it was just a dead mouse.

[Mefistophelis]

In my current ilvl 467 gear, I have 11800 strength. Add another 7k from both of my trinkets proccing. Add 20% for GoAK. For that first ES you have the required 22560 strength to shoot ES past Holy Prism even without considering things like ES lining up with CDs, ES being easier to fit into the rotation without losing holy power, or the advantage of the burst provided by ES.

The big one of those is the the fit into the rotation one.

I like that you talk with math . Most people here "feel" ES is better . But the problem with your logic is that you can line up 1 es with cds . What about the rest of the fight ? GotAK is 5mins cd which means holy prism can TWO good clicks within it's duration . What about gimmic fights like Elegon where you have to do long term damage and them burst ...

[Aceshigh]

I like that you talk with math . Most people here "feel" ES is better . But the problem with your logic is that you can line up 1 es with cds . What about the rest of the fight ? GotAK is 5mins cd which means holy prism can TWO good clicks within it's duration . What about gimmic fights like Elegon where you have to do long term damage and them burst ...

First I just want to say that you can line up more than 1 ES with CDs. You can line it up every 3rd ES with wings, every 2nd one with trinket (if it's not being delayed), the ICDs of the trinkets that have procs will line up with more ES throughout the fight. I understand what you mean, but its not only 1 ES that gets buffed.

The rest of the people talk about "feel" because while you talked math, you talked about ability A vs. ability B with no consideration as to what it does to the rest of the rotation. The "feel" part is actually just as important to how ret ACTUALLY plays, not how it looks on paper when comparing abilities 1 on 1. Take your math and make it include HPR being used every 30-35 seconds, count the loss of Holy power and damage from other abilities if you DO use it on CD. Talk about how it affects the entire rotation and how it works in a real world setting, not "If you use it on CD and compare the damage of ES and HPR then HPR is better". Do those things then come back here and you can talk only in math but, let's face it, ret is a lot about feeling simply because of how the rotation plays out.

Ask some of the higher rets who have done things differently to what the math showed throughout Cata and gotten better results because in theory the math was great but in practice it didn't work out the same. Anaxie and some of the other guys showed this a few times.

[Sturmcantor]

I like that you talk with math . Most people here "feel" ES is better . But the problem with your logic is that you can line up 1 es with cds . What about the rest of the fight ? GotAK is 5mins cd which means holy prism can TWO good clicks within it's duration . What about gimmic fights like Elegon where you have to do long term damage and them burst ...

Thank you for ignoring half of my post. Holy Prism gets used closer to every 35 seconds than 20 if not farther apart because it's not worth using over abilities that generate holy power. In an AoE situation, Light's Hammer will usually be stronger.

[Hamanis]

With using ES and HP with all CD's running, ES does 38,478 damage more (For my Character)

Waiting 3 minutes for HA and AW to line up again, HP will do 10,878 damage more total.

So my guess is that in the long run, it is gonna be less than 50k damage for difference.

Edit: This is without any crits, fight modifiers (% damage, movement, HP capped, etc)

[Rio]

On the PvP side of things, not only do the numbers make sense but the pure support and 20sec CD HPr provides makes it a no-brainer. Once I switched to Prism I never went back to ES.

[Karazee]

With using ES and HP with all CD's running, ES does 38,478 damage more (For my Character)

Waiting 3 minutes for HA and AW to line up again, HP will do 10,878 damage more total.

So my guess is that in the long run, it is gonna be less than 50k damage for difference.

Edit: This is without any crits, fight modifiers (% damage, movement, HP capped, etc)

With such a low damage difference, your healers will appreciate you passively helping out with some AoE heals in melee range.

[Spotnick]

I'm going to try holy prism on Elegon because it has a shorter cooldown, overall it's probably going to be less damage, but it's an extra attack that would hit the orbs while execution sentence would be useless.

Those talents are totally going to be swapped from fight to fight based on your personal playstyle. Stop trying to find a cookie cutter.

[Sagittary]

The biggest issue of HRP vs ES is the fact that neither of their GCD's gets reduced by Sanctity of battle, so especially during lust, you have a 1.5 second GCD which is a HUGE loss if you do 2 HRP compared to 1 ES during lust.