Prot Nerfs

[celinamuna]

After they see hardcore guilds pulling bosses with trash they'll probably add an ICD.

Or just bored paladins + primordius.

[Nairobi]

I haven't tested it personally, but my friend (Kerriodos from Odyssey) did. At ~44% haste he was able to keep the full rotation up for a little over 2 minutes, if my memory of our conversation is correct.

I'd have to do some math to confirm it, but going from 6% to 10% is probably close to what SoI was returning anyway.

4% base mana per melee, CS, SotR. Let's be generous and assume 40% haste, so your melee swing timer is 2.60/1.4/1.1 = 1.688. CS happens every 4.5/1.4 = 3.214 seconds, and you should get about 1.4/4.5+1.4/6.75=0.519 HP/sec from CS and J. Let's throw some avoids in there and round up to 0.5454, which gives us a mean time between SotRs of 5.5 seconds.

SoI is 20 PPM, so it's an 86.67% chance to proc per melee event with a 2.6-speed weapon. Based on that level of haste, we have

1/1.688 + 1/3.214 + 1/5.5 = 1.085 chances to proc per second, which is 0.94 procs per second, or about 3.76% of base mana returned per second.

So it's about half of what SoI gave us, but then again we never needed all of that SoI gain to maintain the rotation. I'm not sure exactly how much it'll cost to maintain the rotation at 40% haste (though again, it should be pretty easy to calculate), but I expect that the additional 2% base mana per second will cover it. If not, it wouldn't be hard to buff it to 12% or 14% if it's absolutely required.

My napkin math shows that at 50% haste, all we need to maintain a rotation is 9% on GbtL. So 10% should account for "slop" in rebuke/taunt/DivProt/whatever.

We COULD beg for 15% or something, but we'd likely see "PVP ramifications" cited as an excuse.

[Deleted]

My napkin math shows that at 50% haste, all we need to maintain a rotation is 9% on GbtL. So 10% should account for "slop" in rebuke/taunt/DivProt/whatever.

We COULD beg for 15% or something, but we'd likely see "PVP ramifications" cited as an excuse.

Well 15% is about what we had before. You need 14% to substain back to back GC proc spamming which is a likely scenario if the GC changes goes live, so anything below 14% will likely have going oom as a possible outcome when you take the other skills into consideration.

[Nairobi]

Well 15% is about what we had before. You need 14% to substain back to back GC proc spamming which is a likely scenario if the GC changes goes live, so anything below 14% will likely have going oom as a possible outcome when you take the other skills into consideration.

Not as I've counted.

All our mana consumers:

Blinding Light: 4800
Hands: 4200
Consec: 4200
Avenger's Shield: 4200
Hand of Salvation: 3200
Judgement: 3000
Holy Wrath: 3000
Fist of Justice (Talent): 2106
Reckoning (Taunt): 2100
Div Protection: 2100


CS, J, X = 1800 + 3000 + 4200(filler of choice), totalling 9000 mana for 3 GCDs, or 3.0 seconds. Rounding it up to 3.5 sec, that's still 2571 mana per sec OUT, while only 1800 mana per sec IN.

Next "round" is CS, X, J: different order, but same total expenditure.

Then we have CS, X, X: 1800 + 4200 + 4200 = 10200 mana, 2914 MPS OUT, still only 1800 MPS IN.

So, (2571+2571+2914)/3 = 2685.33 MPS for our "default rotation". We need 2685.33 mana per second to perform just the basic CS,J,X,CS,X,J,CS,X,X. We currently get 1800 MPS from GbtL. So we have a gap of 885.33 MPS.

In order to cover that, we'd need to see, let's say, 900 MPS. This is also equal to a flat 50% buff to current GbtL. This would be 2700 MPS, aka 9% from GbtL.

We're getting, supposedly, 10%. Which would be 3000 MPS, giving us an extra 315 MPS for "fluff". In that 9 second CS,J,X,CS,X,J,CS,X,X rotation (at 50% haste) this would be 2835 mana to spare.

This is, of course, assuming ZERO latency AND 50% haste. More realistically, we're looking at ~4k mana per cycle. This is also not counting in empty GCDs for things like SS refresh or AW casts.

You can DivProt once every 3+ cycles, taunt every cycle, and still be fine on mana. 2 interrupts per 3 cycles may start to creep in a bit, but we'll have to see that in action.

So, 10% will be cutting it close, but even at the most cutting edge, unless you're playing IN Irvine, CA, you should be fine/neutral. Maybe 12% is a better target?

[Kaeth]

So here we have an example of Blizzard's removing a mechanic that worked nicely to scale mana regeneration with haste for prot paladins, and wasn't causing any problem with an already somewhat mediocre (since 5.3) -- and getting worse (5.4) -- healing spec, and potentially replacing it with a band-aid fix that will likely not scale well with haste (unless they go with the blatantly obvious and simple destruction warlock mechanic ripoff: "Mana regeneration from Guarded by the Light is affected by your melee haste") and thus penalize you for gearing up.

Just hoping they sober up and revert the change before a release candidate build; it causes numerous problems while being a solution to a nonexistent problem.

As for the Battle Healer change, I'd prefer the glyph simply add a new seal with the raid healing functionality ("Seal of the Martyr" ... "Seal of Selflessness" ... or something) so we can swap with stock SoI on the fly, mid-combat, but it's acceptable as is in the PTR notes. Being OP was fun while it lasted.

CS, J, X = 1800 + 3000 + 4200(filler of choice), totalling 9000 mana for 3 GCDs, or 3.0 seconds. Rounding it up to 3.5 sec, that's still 2571 mana per sec OUT, while only 1800 mana per sec IN.

You should also include your base combat regen of 1% of base mana per second. That's another 600 for a total of 2400. I'm not disagreeing with your conclusion; it's still a net mana loss over time, but a lot slower than your numbers would suggest before calculating the effects of haste.

[Ferocity]

I rather assumed the SoI mana return thing was to discourage holy from meleeing bosses to cheese mana regen. Don't see any real effect on prot.

Actually holy paladins were designed around having to melee mobs in MoP. They are the healers with most inefficient spells (WoG/EF doesn't count) and little way to gain mana back outside meleeing. Meanwhile haste-fans can go for tanking stats, as it should be, holy paladins will get a huge blow to their healing by this change unless they are super-geared. Especially if to consider huge nerf and higher cost of effective AoE healling in 5.3.

Best solution would be to decrease mana cost of all paladin's spells.

[Aceshigh]

Instead it's much better to go ballistic over some change that hasn't even been implemented on ptr and just briefly mentioned on blue post.

Yeah my bad, I forgot that discussions about things that could potentially (look it up if you're unsure) cripple an aspect of a class (AN ASPECT) even if its just an oversight. We all know oversights have never gone live and nothing has ever been overlooked when its a small change. I mean, you'd almost think that this was such common sense that everyone greed what this change would do and no one in this thread has said "it won't make us OOM, I don't see how". Surely it's impossible for people to miss what that change would potentially cause. From now on guys don't discuss stuf, k? P.S. Now we're beating a dead horse.

Well I'm not saying the players are dumb for taking the optimal stats, I'm saying it's dumb that DPS stats are optimal for tanks. Good is okay, optimal isn't. What if dodge became the best stat for a ret pally? That would just be absurd.

What is dumb is that they've pushed an active mitigation model but they still want people to use stats that go completely against everything that the active mitigation model stands for and attempts to accomplish. If you're so stuck on keeping dodge/parry then that is fine but dodge/parry need to be reworked to at least fir the model of active mitigation and not be the complete nuclear polar opposite of it. If they want to redesign dodge and parry for the next expac to keep it in line with active mitigation just so they can keep the words "dodge", "parry" and "tank stats/tank gear" around fine, but it has to make sense with the model they push. Right now you're saying "it's dumb that DPS stats are best for tanks" but if they said "dodge now affects and interacts with Sanctity of Battle in the same way that haste does" it would be ok because it's "a tank stat"? You seem to be evaluating stats without actually considering what they do and how they interact with active mitigation; you're holding on to traditional terms and for what reason?

[Homsel]

The only way you would take offence at what I said is if it applies. Struck a nerve maybe?

None taken. I reminded you to stick to the forum etiquette. If you have nothing useful to contribute please move to any of such threads.

Back on topic: I'd like you to remind you of the retribution mechanics. I've not yet seen one ret pally using SoI but almost exclusively only using SoT. I've never seen any of them drop lower than 75% on any fights, only if anyone ever used a hard casted Flash of Light. They still use mana as a resource for CS/HotR, J, Exo (2400 mana), frequent interrupts, sometimes Emancipate (9000 mana!) and rarely switching seals (9800 mana). They favour haste over everything else ending up at even higher rates than prot. So are they usually at a 1 s already. Still their mechanics don't let them mana starve, even under Sanc Wrath with any other CDs. There must be something which hasn't been taken into account when calculating the in/out mana within those theoretical explanations.

[Aceshigh]

Back on topic: I'd like you to remind you of the retribution mechanics. I've not yet seen one ret pally using SoI but almost exclusively only using SoT. I've never seen any of them drop lower than 75% on any fights, only if anyone ever used a hard casted Flash of Light. They still use mana as a resource for CS/HotR, J, Exo (2400 mana), sometimes Emancipate (9000 mana!) and rarely switching seals (9800 mana). They favour haste over everything else ending up at even higher rates than prot. So are they usually at a 1 s already. Still their mechanics don't let them mana starve, even under Sanc Wrath with any other CDs. There must be something which hasn't been taken into account when calculating the in/out mana within those theoretical explanations.

There aren't many instances where rets swap seals and when they do it's not much seal swapping. Rets HP dumbs are ON the GCD while prots HP dumps are not, that's extra globals for rets to recover mana. Judge 3k, CS/HoTR is 1800, Exo is 2400, those are the things you use most often that have mana costs. Prot uses more abilities that use mana (J same as ret, CS/HoTR same as ret, AS 4200, HW 3000, Cons 4200) which results in higher mana costs (10,800 for prot vs. 7,200 for ret rotation) and more globals that are spending mana than ret. Emancipate does drain mana fast as fuck if it's spammed in pvp, it is almost never used in pve because freedom is much more effective in a pve setting and only costs 4200 mana. However, in pvp you have many more "dead" globals than you ever have in pve making the man returns not much of an issue unless playing INSANELY defensive and using all mana on heals.

The things that you havent taken into consideration seem to be:
1) Prot uses more abilities that cost mana which ends up in more mana spent.
2) Prot has less "dead globals" where they are not spending mana because they've got more buttons and their HP dumps are off the GCD.
3) Ret goes through 30 second cycles every 2 minutes (wings) where they are using a rotation of Hammer of Wrath (1800 mana), filler, HoW, filler, HoW, HP dump, HoW, filler, HoW. It replacing some of the higher mana spells (Judge/Exo) for the lower mana cost HoW.
These 3 things alone have a pretty big impact on it.

[Nillo]

I'd like you to remind you of the retribution mechanics. I've not yet seen one ret pally using SoI but almost exclusively only using SoT. I've never seen any of them drop lower than 75% on any fights, only if anyone ever used a hard casted Flash of Light. They still use mana as a resource for CS/HotR, J, Exo (2400 mana), frequent interrupts, sometimes Emancipate (9000 mana!) and rarely switching seals (9800 mana). They favour haste over everything else ending up at even higher rates than prot. So are they usually at a 1 s already. Still their mechanics don't let them mana starve, even under Sanc Wrath with any other CDs. There must be something which hasn't been taken into account when calculating the in/out mana within those theoretical explanations.

Ya right...
All of the ret abilities are cheaper than the prot ones.
Ret uses gcds on mana free HP spells (prot HP spells are off the gcd)
Also I'm pretty sure that ret paladins do not have 50% haste yet (or even stack it as much as prot paladins do...)

[Funky303]

Well I have close to 50% haste raidbuffed (49,24) with no trinket proc or Hero/BL. Haste is THE only way to go for Rets.

And to my armory link as prot yesterday: I play main Ret, just switched to Prot because one of our tanks is away from Wow for 3 weeks due to exams. So i use most of my Ret items and tank with them. The Str + Stam gem is due to beeing well over hit capped (and not beeing able to reforge it), so there are only 2 gems for a blue socket I could take: haste+hit (green) or str+hit (purple). Since I am well over hit capped, I take str+stam (moar stam more survivability as ret). I hadn't reforged my gear yesterday due to just switching spec fast for the armory.

But back to topic: we have to test the new buff to 10% on PTR, just downloading the client and the new T16 Set bonuses look sweet, although I'm gonna miss the T15 2p bonus (esp on fights like JiKun HC)

[Pua]

So, 10% will be cutting it close, but even at the most cutting edge, unless you're playing IN Irvine, CA, you should be fine/neutral. Maybe 12% is a better target?

I was chatting with a friend of mine who is geared and has been running some of the tests, and she implied that 12% to 15% would be okay assuming you're not being asked to do anything really extraordinary.

Her opinion is more valid than yours, however, as if she chose to post on these forums, she'd have an avatar.

Sort it out.

[djtravitrav]

the only change which matters here is the seal of insight no longer returning mana.
In a normal rotation, this means you go out of mana in approximately 40 seconds.

Seem's like that's where we should be focusing any kind of complaint, all the rest, honestly needed a nerf, if you don't see that, take your helmet off.

[Aceshigh]

the only change which matters here is the seal of insight no longer returning mana.
In a normal rotation, this means you go out of mana in approximately 40 seconds.

Seem's like that's where we should be focusing any kind of complaint, all the rest, honestly needed a nerf, if you don't see that, take your helmet off.

Honestly have no idea how you can say this change to GC is needed to the point where "we need to take our helmets off". That actualy blows my mind. All it does is make us broken when lots of adds are involved and a little worse while tanking offtanking. That's it. It's not like this change to GC is something that is zomg completely needed. It doesn't even really make sense. They tried it last ptr, saw it didn't work well and scrapped it. Why is it SO needed now, what has changed to make this gc nerf completely needed and if we can't see that we need to take our helmets off? I really wanna see the explanation to this one.

[Xucuroz]

How can something that targets the lowest HP character overheal? Except insofar as it overhealed already.



You don't like that dodge and parry were devalued, and then complain that they re-value them?

You're a tank, you're supposed to like tank stats. If not you should be playing DPS.

- - - Updated - - -

Tell that to Monks and Druids. This is very bad band aid fix that in no way solves the problem of making dodge and parry more interesting stat to Paladins. The game has evolved massively over the years and tanks contribute a massive amount of damage to boss kills today, especially while progressing.

Telling people "if they don't like it, go play dps" isn't a solution. Just like unless they make drastic changes to how vengeance works as a mechanic, tanks will still want to take more damage to increase their vengeance to do more damage.

The whole Dodge/parry thing isn't even unique to Prot paladins. Blood Dks aren't crazy for it either as a stat.

[Deleted]

Hi there,

I was wondering if someone could explain to me how the BH glyph nerf works?

Currently:
Using melee attacks while using Seal of Insight heals a nearby injured friendly target, excluding the Paladin
Nerf: Melee attacks from Seal of Insight heal the most wounded member of your raid or party instead of you.

In my eyes, they say EXACTLY the same thing.

[Nobleshield]

Hi there,

I was wondering if someone could explain to me how the BH glyph nerf works?

Currently:
Using melee attacks while using Seal of Insight heals a nearby injured friendly target, excluding the Paladin
Nerf: Melee attacks from Seal of Insight heal the most wounded member of your raid or party instead of you.

In my eyes, they say EXACTLY the same thing.

The current version heals you for X, and then a percentage heals a nearby friendly target.

The new (nerfed) version no longer heals you, it basically takes how the unglyphed SoI works and applies it to nearby targets EXCLUDING you.

[Deleted]

Well I don't play pal and don't know the class mechanics very well, so I apologize if I say some cray shit. Please don't hesitate to tell me if I'm wrong somewhere.

I would like to really understand the new changes (especially the one about SoI).

I am, however, a very experienced tank player. I see a lot of whines about the change on SoI... I understand this change deeply affect the prot pal gameplay, and is gonna make pal oom very fast with the current way of playing : a lot of stats and agressive skills without a second thought about anything but holy power.

Basically you use mana skills to deal damages and generate holy power with crusader strike and use holy power to mitigate incoming damages. But as you have unlimited mana you don't have to choose between the two... you're doing them both, and very well at that.

With the change, you will not be able to maintain your entire dps rotation anymore and would be forced to actually choose between a lot of crusader strikes and a lot of dps if I grasp corectly...

If it so, I have some difficulties to understand why so many whines... I understand it hurts to be nerf, but prot pal are actually world bosses : they are first dps on several fights, take certainly the less spike damages and are the best no-heal healing class/spe... and in top of that they have many usefull raid ability. They are really in need of a nerf and I find this one interesting. I mean, Blizzard could simply have decrease the base damage of skills : this would have not affect the gameplay but would have the very same results... with the difference you could not maximize your DPS when needed.

In this case, they essentialy add a new ressource to manage : the mana, and what you are doing with it. All in all they continue to copy the DK gameplay model : two ressources to manage and a choice about what to do with it : survival or damage.

In my opinion the nerf could have been a lot more dumb and hurtfull that it currently is...

[Deleted]

there is no mana nerf for prot

[Deleted]

Not as I've counted.

Yes, you are correct for the more hitting on a target dummy rotation. What I am more worried about is with this change to GC proc, we are naturally gonna have times where we get chained proc after proc after proc, and AS costs 4.2k mana. If we spam nothing but AS we would need 14% mana back just for AS.

12% would probably be reasonable for 'normal' rotation, but seeing as we had roughly 13-14%~ earlier, I do not see why we should nerf our mana regen, just give us what we had before.