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  1. #561
    Malkorak HM comes to mind as one where they will both be extremely strong Need to look more into mechanics but that is one that comes just from the top of my head.

  2. #562
    Quote Originally Posted by Diatenium View Post
    Honestly, I knew EF was going to be an issue the first second I saw them remove the target restriction on it. Players have grown so wholly dependant on the talent that it completely contradicts the inherent design purpose of having talents in the first place.

    Worse yet, the talent is completely useless for Retribution and marginally-less-but-still useless for Protection. To be totally honest, I feel the talent needs to be removed entirely. The mechanic itself is fine, I grew to rather enjoy the talent, but in the broadest sense it's more a burden than anything else.

    I see a lot of complaints directed at the uselessness of the other options available, namely that SS is fine mechanically but numerically impotent and SH is too much of a hassle to deal with, so I think it might be worth expressing my feelings on the matter.

    Sacred Shield doesn't really need much in the way of altercation, though I think doubling the buff's duration to a minuet would improve the spell without necessarily making it more powerful--thusly making it more attractive for Ret and Holy by virtue of reduced maintenance whilst not affecting Prot's standing with the spell.

    Selfless Healer is a more substantive issue. Blizzard briefly toyed with the idea of SH proccing on Holy Shock, but they chose against it because it perpetuated the issue of Holy Paladins in PvP--namely how well they perform purely via instant-casts. It would ostensibly make SH mandatory in PvP. This is also why Holy Paladins cannot generate Holy Power via Judgement. And that's really the core of the issue here; in making the spell more attractive for Holy you run the risk of breaking it in PvP. I will say, though, that SH is made weaker in the next patch if only by virtue of compulsion to select it incidentally along with other talents that proc on Judgement (Long Arm and Burden, the latter of which was replaced by EiaPoV)

    Hell, I could go on about how making EPV a talent is a nerf to Holy Paladins in PvP that also benefits neither of the other specs but I'm rambling enough as it is.

    Ultimately, nerfing the talent might seem like a solution to Holy but it still doesn't change the fact that it's not a compelling choice to the other two specs; it simply doesn't work in this context.
    Sacred Shield: Place a shield of light on your target that aborbs xxx per charge. You gain a charge every 6 seconds. When 8 stacks are reached the shield explodes with holy energy placing an absorption shield for xxx on up to 8 raid members within 25 yards. The target of Sacred Shield can not gain this effect.

    Sorry if the wording is bad, but you get my idea. Maybe modify it for 25s like a lot of heals are. Or maybe just have the shield charges explode for a heal and cause Illuminated healing.
    Last edited by Dânce; 2013-07-07 at 04:25 PM.

  3. #563
    Quote Originally Posted by Dânce View Post
    Sacred Shield: Place a shield of light on your target that aborbs xxx per charge. You gain a charge every 6 seconds. When 8 stacks are reached the shield explodes with holy energy placing an absorption shield for xxx on up to 8 raid members within 25 yards. The target of Sacred Shield can not gain this effect.

    Sorry if the wording is bad, but you get my idea. Maybe modify it for 25s like a lot of heals are. Or maybe just have the shield charges explode for a heal and cause Illuminated healing.
    I'm not sure it's rightly conducive to suggest substantive ability changes on any granular level. The change I suggested for sacred shield is a fairly minor altercation and more illustrative of the issue with the ability--namely its maintenance. The framing of it only working on one person at a time as a numbers issue is only because EF makes it so.

    Also, SS is already too attractive for prot, any buffs to its raw performance will only reinforce that.

  4. #564
    Quote Originally Posted by Diatenium View Post
    Also, SS is already too attractive for prot, any buffs to its raw performance will only reinforce that.
    Well you can make it work differently for prot and holy. Increasing the duration to 1 min seems largely pointless. Allowing it to be active on two targets at once or something to that effect for Holy would make it more attractive. I'm not convinced a 1 min duration would have any effect.

  5. #565
    Quote Originally Posted by Pasture View Post
    Well you can make it work differently for prot and holy. Increasing the duration to 1 min seems largely pointless. Allowing it to be active on two targets at once or something to that effect for Holy would make it more attractive. I'm not convinced a 1 min duration would have any effect.
    The assertion that there's anything really wrong with SS to begin with is a false one, as that perspective is wholly framed under the pretense of EF and how well it performs, which is the core of the issue here. Most players expect the other choices to be as good as EF, but EF was never really meant to be such an essential talent.

    Moreover, Blizzard generally tries to avoid having talents behave differently across specs unless that difference in behaviour is central to it mechanics.

  6. #566
    But a big part of the problem is that EF is currently the only thing propping up our healing. Sure you can nerf EF and then maybe SS will be on par with it, but that does nothing to address our larger problems. Then we're just stuck with a pick your poison situation, while still lagging behind other healers.

  7. #567
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Yuma8244 View Post
    But a big part of the problem is that EF is currently the only thing propping up our healing. Sure you can nerf EF and then maybe SS will be on par with it, but that does nothing to address our larger problems. Then we're just stuck with a pick your poison situation, while still lagging behind other healers.
    I'd be interested in seeing a few logs from a paladin which doesn't use eternal flame and gears for less spirit, would be interesting to say the least.

  8. #568
    Quote Originally Posted by Reglitch View Post
    I'd be interested in seeing a few logs from a paladin which doesn't use eternal flame and gears for less spirit, would be interesting to say the least.
    I'm sure if you looked you could find them.

  9. #569
    Quote Originally Posted by Reglitch View Post
    I'd be interested in seeing a few logs from a paladin which doesn't use eternal flame and gears for less spirit, would be interesting to say the least.
    They will be around, but a rarity realistically since SS + LoD is such a subpar healing choice compared to EF, even with EF paladin's are dropping spirit in favour of mastery. They just don't drop as much spirit as some other healing classes with superior regen outside of spirit.

    I know in a majority of the kills I do, I don't tend to EF spam (I still take the talent) since its not something I enjoy but some fights I am forced to do so, twins springs to mind. I do however heal with a disc priest which is probably why I can get away with not really spamming my heart out.

  10. #570
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Pasture View Post
    I'm sure if you looked you could find them.
    I'm not so sure, you'd have to dig pretty deep to find such logs.

    Paladins who gear for less spirit, sure. Its farm, fights barely last anything, you can melee for the rest of the mana needs. Paladins who actively use LoD and are actually on WoL, nope.
    LoD just heals for nothing

  11. #571
    Quote Originally Posted by Yuma8244 View Post
    But a big part of the problem is that EF is currently the only thing propping up our healing. Sure you can nerf EF and then maybe SS will be on par with it, but that does nothing to address our larger problems. Then we're just stuck with a pick your poison situation, while still lagging behind other healers.
    I generally avoid diamond-hard number crunching for a number of reasons, namely that said numbers are tied to an encounter with a lot of moving parts and failure in one part might make another part look better (Healing is zero-sum, so if a DPS takes additional damage your healers will do additional healing), in addition to the fact that most bleeding-edge raiders minimize their healer numbers due to the expectation of all players avoiding avoidable damage and effectively mitigating unavoidable damage, which cannot be said for hardcore raiders who aren't bleeding-edge, to say nothing of the fact that said encounter data will become mostly irrelevant in a new tier with completely new encounters.

    Moreover numbers are wholly irrelevant in a PTR setting; the removal of mastery from EF is a mechanical change which influences numbers, yes, but this early in the environment abilities are too much in flux to really worry about how it maths out. It's more important to discuss mechanics, than anything else.

  12. #572
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Diatenium View Post
    I generally avoid diamond-hard number crunching for a number of reasons, namely that said numbers are tied to an encounter with a lot of moving parts and failure in one part might make another part look better (Healing is zero-sum, so if a DPS takes additional damage your healers will do additional healing), in addition to the fact that most bleeding-edge raiders minimize their healer numbers due to the expectation of all players avoiding avoidable damage and effectively mitigating unavoidable damage, which cannot be said for hardcore raiders who aren't bleeding-edge, to say nothing of the fact that said encounter data will become mostly irrelevant in a new tier with completely new encounters.

    Moreover numbers are wholly irrelevant in a PTR setting; the removal of mastery from EF is a mechanical change which influences numbers, yes, but this early in the environment abilities are too much in flux to really worry about how it maths out. It's more important to discuss mechanics, than anything else.
    I disagree completely.

    1)Bleeding Edge raiders don't minimize damage intake. Usually additional damage is fatal on progress. For example getting hit by Anima Font on Dark Animus this content was extremely deadly. We minimize the number of healers, because we can get dps instead. If an encounter is extremely demanding from a dps PoV for example, the usual solution is to cut the number of healers drastically and use the most overpowered ones+dps raid cds. As long as the encounter has enough "in" damage, as it does on progress, the healing numbers are not going to drastically change between classes. When you do Jin'rokh now,obviously the healing in the encounter is extremely capped, so absorb snipes will pull out ahead.

    We are testing encounters on the PTR right now. Holy Paladins are horrible in them.

    Also if healing class A does 200k hps right now and healing class B does 150k, and I nerf class B,while the encounters change I'm pretty confident that class A will nearly always do more then class B.


    2)While removing the absorbs from EF is technically a mechanic change, its actually a pure number issue. It doesn't set any ability in flux or whatever. For example if tomorrow a patch note said:
    Priests
    Attonement has been removed from the game

    This is a mechanic change.Our change is PURELY math.

    3) We are not early in the PTR. I would say we're about midway(there are very few 10 man normal encounters to be tested, which got delayed by the 4th of July holidays @ US). Expect PTR live within 1 month, at most 2. At this point, Blizzard will start looking to wrap things up regarding balance. If we're still shit in 2 weeks for now, that is the state we're going to hit live realms with.

  13. #573
    Quote Originally Posted by Aladya View Post
    I disagree completely.

    1)Bleeding Edge raiders don't minimize damage intake. Usually additional damage is fatal on progress. For example getting hit by Anima Font on Dark Animus this content was extremely deadly. We minimize the number of healers, because we can get dps instead. If an encounter is extremely demanding from a dps PoV for example, the usual solution is to cut the number of healers drastically and use the most overpowered ones+dps raid cds. As long as the encounter has enough "in" damage, as it does on progress, the healing numbers are not going to drastically change between classes. When you do Jin'rokh now,obviously the healing in the encounter is extremely capped, so absorb snipes will pull out ahead.

    We are testing encounters on the PTR right now. Holy Paladins are horrible in them.

    Also if healing class A does 200k hps right now and healing class B does 150k, and I nerf class B,while the encounters change I'm pretty confident that class A will nearly always do more then class B.


    2)While removing the absorbs from EF is technically a mechanic change, its actually a pure number issue. It doesn't set any ability in flux or whatever. For example if tomorrow a patch note said:
    Priests
    Attonement has been removed from the game

    This is a mechanic change.Our change is PURELY math.

    3) We are not early in the PTR. I would say we're about midway(there are very few 10 man normal encounters to be tested, which got delayed by the 4th of July holidays @ US). Expect PTR live within 1 month, at most 2. At this point, Blizzard will start looking to wrap things up regarding balance. If we're still shit in 2 weeks for now, that is the state we're going to hit live realms with.
    Even if we were adherent to the speculation that this went live exactly one month from now, you should know that articulated number adjustment is the absolute last thing they do in a PTRs life cycle, so we're still about three weeks away from them being satisfied with class mechanics. They haven't even finished their glyph pass yet.

    Moreover, you're supplying your argument with early, improperly tuned and ilvl-throttled encounters, where the developers have yet to fully adjust said encounters around the class ecology that's been established, or have had the time to respond to class performance across the board.

    Additionally, the claim that paladins perform way worse without EF only manages to support my argument that EF--as a talent--simply does not work.

    Let's try not to derail the subject too much on matters of numbers [In the broadest sense], numbers only really matter in regards to individual spells and their proportion/distribution as they compare to other spells, since these are indicative of its mechanics.
    Last edited by Diatenium; 2013-07-08 at 12:51 AM.

  14. #574
    Quote Originally Posted by Diatenium View Post
    numbers only really matter in regards to individual spells and their proportion/distribution as they compare to other spells, since these are indicative of its mechanics.
    Isn't this almost the entirety of what this discussion has been about? Of course numbers are important here. I take your point that there's a lot of adjustment to be done yet, but it's still worth discussing where the numbers of a particular spell are, and where they should be. Furthermore fixing those numbers can be intricately tied to the mechanics of the spell, as I think you point out here and others have with their suggested mechanics changes. It would be rather difficult to totally divorce numbers from mechanics in these discussions, as the two in nearly every instance go together.

    I think you make a pretty good point about EF just not working out so well as a talent, at least not right now. The legitimate fear of a lot of people here is that the response will be, "well this talent is too prominent, so let's just nerf it so it's not." Sure blizz has said that we're going to get some form of compensation, but they also said we'd get a dance studio at one point and look where that ended up. We shouldn't be too cynical or devolve into "the sky is falling" mentality, but keeping a realistic picture of where numbers are atm isn't a bad thing.

  15. #575
    Quote Originally Posted by Yuma8244 View Post
    Isn't this almost the entirety of what this discussion has been about? Of course numbers are important here. I take your point that there's a lot of adjustment to be done yet, but it's still worth discussing where the numbers of a particular spell are, and where they should be. Furthermore fixing those numbers can be intricately tied to the mechanics of the spell, as I think you point out here and others have with their suggested mechanics changes. It would be rather difficult to totally divorce numbers from mechanics in these discussions, as the two in nearly every instance go together.

    I think you make a pretty good point about EF just not working out so well as a talent, at least not right now. The legitimate fear of a lot of people here is that the response will be, "well this talent is too prominent, so let's just nerf it so it's not." Sure blizz has said that we're going to get some form of compensation, but they also said we'd get a dance studio at one point and look where that ended up. We shouldn't be too cynical or devolve into "the sky is falling" mentality, but keeping a realistic picture of where numbers are atm isn't a bad thing.
    The comparison between adjusting class power and Dance Studio is a false one. Buffing a spell's throughput is perhaps the single easiest thing blizzard can do, the only challenge comes in determining what class needs buffing, by how much, and to what spells. Even then, the combined work necessary to buff a class is still a lot easier than developing a new talent, which has the potential to greatly alter the class ecology and can become increasingly difficult to dislodge (Which is the case of EF).

    For this reason they'll be inclined to try and adjust the ability as much as possible before they actually try to replace it, exacerbated by how much this would upend the current Holy Paladin playstyle--which is generally something they try to avoid mid-expansion--and how the ability itself operates fine outside of the context of being a talent.

  16. #576
    Quote Originally Posted by Diatenium View Post
    The comparison between adjusting class power and Dance Studio is a false one.
    That would be because it was meant to be a lighthearted/not all that serious one. It's just an instance of blizz saying it's going to do something, and then not actually getting around to it.

  17. #577
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Diatenium View Post
    The comparison between adjusting class power and Dance Studio is a false one. Buffing a spell's throughput is perhaps the single easiest thing blizzard can do, the only challenge comes in determining what class needs buffing, by how much, and to what spells. Even then, the combined work necessary to buff a class is still a lot easier than developing a new talent, which has the potential to greatly alter the class ecology and can become increasingly difficult to dislodge (Which is the case of EF).
    And that's the problem we are facing. That is the thing we want to avoid at all costs. We don't want any of our existing spells buffed. With LoD being the exception.
    Eternal Flame allows us to handle spread out mechanics and big damage bursts more effectively. Without EF we have multiple single target spells and a 10 yard aoe and the 30 yard LoD that heals for very little. Guess daybreak fists into the 10 yard aoe.. We have yet to receive any real communication on what is going to happen.

    Quote Originally Posted by Diatenium View Post
    For this reason they'll be inclined to try and adjust the ability as much as possible before they actually try to replace it, exacerbated by how much this would upend the current Holy Paladin playstyle--which is generally something they try to avoid mid-expansion--and how the ability itself operates fine outside of the context of being a talent.
    And they haven't done this at all this patch. We started out with big nerfs 30% base and the no IH refresh. They took SS and replaced it with shit. And then they undo it. There are no number adjustments yet. And to make my point here is a nice GC quote:

    In case you have forgotten since the previous PTR, we focus on mechanic changes first and number changes once those have settled.
    Source(twitter)

  18. #578
    Pandaren Monk Freia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Diatenium View Post
    Buffing a spell's throughput is perhaps the single easiest thing blizzard can do, the only challenge comes in determining what class needs buffing, by how much, and to what spells.
    As Nars said, buffing our spells by a percentage is not what we need. We need mechanic changes to make our actual heals effective so we aren't so reliant on our mastery. If you think all we need is a little increase in the strength of our current heals, you definitely have not been paying attention. We also do not want them waiting until the very end to put out changes that likely won't get tested properly.
    Last edited by Freia; 2013-07-08 at 05:17 AM.

  19. #579
    Quote Originally Posted by Reglitch View Post
    I'd be interested in seeing a few logs from a paladin which doesn't use eternal flame and gears for less spirit, would be interesting to say the least.
    I'd imagine not using Eternal Flame will mean even more spirit stacking is required, not less.

  20. #580
    Quote Originally Posted by Narsilon View Post
    And that's the problem we are facing. That is the thing we want to avoid at all costs. We don't want any of our existing spells buffed. With LoD being the exception.
    Eternal Flame allows us to handle spread out mechanics and big damage bursts more effectively. Without EF we have multiple single target spells and a 10 yard aoe and the 30 yard LoD that heals for very little. Guess daybreak fists into the 10 yard aoe.. We have yet to receive any real communication on what is going to happen.



    And they haven't done this at all this patch. We started out with big nerfs 30% base and the no IH refresh. They took SS and replaced it with shit. And then they undo it. There are no number adjustments yet. And to make my point here is a nice GC quote:


    Source(twitter)
    You're twisting the context of my statement. When I claim the ease of buffing spells it was in the context of compensating for a healing loss should ever EF be removed entirely and it results in a clear dropoff in performance. The merit of having a HoT like EF is not my central argument, but rather that EF is too powerful to work in the context of a talent and is mechanically designed as such that it cannot be tuned in a way to make it work for every spec.

    Moreover, these particular numerical changes are mechanical in nature as they alter the headspace these spells occupy. If you suddenly did 5% more healing it wouldn't alter how you behave and largely be visible just in the logs, but altering EF to not proc IH means a behavioural change, you no longer use EF to maintain IH, and how you interact with your gear itemization has now been altered.

    To reiterate on that statement, they will attempt to adjust how the ability behaves before, failing that, replacing the ability entirely. Depending on how long they spend trying to make EF "Work", we may not see them change the spell until next expansion.

    Quote Originally Posted by Freia View Post
    As Nars said, buffing our spells by a percentage is not what we need. We need mechanic changes to make our actual heals effective so we aren't so reliant on our mastery. If you think all we need is a little increase in the strength of our current heals, you definitely have not been paying attention. We also do not want them waiting until the very end to put out changes that likely won't get tested properly.
    I'm sorry, I honestly have no idea what you're trying to argue here, you're being too vauge. In what manner is our heals ineffective, and how does our reliance on mastery influence this? You'll need to expand upon your argument a bit before I can really offer my opinion on it.
    Last edited by Diatenium; 2013-07-08 at 08:13 AM.

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