Soooo sacred shield nerf?

[lunchbox2042]

I find it ironic Blizzard added haste to tank tier and then nerfed it.

[Deleted]

Eternal Flame HoT:
(711 + 8.19% * SP)*2*(1+BoG*(~)0.5)

With 3 BoG stacks:
(711 + 8.19% * SP)*5
3555 + 40.95% * SP every 3 sec
or
7110 + 81.8% * SP every 6 sec

vs.

Sacred Shield:
(343 + 117% * SP)*0.7
240 + 81.9% * SP every 6 sec

Obviously EF will have a overheal around 60-70%, while SS will have one around 10%...
Not worth it. Even if we would get it for free (T16 4P), it could only win if it would have the same overheal %.

[Deleted]

I'm alittle irritated with this nerf, 5-15% would have been enough, but 30% just seems excessive, way excessive. I mean common really? 30%? That 30% counts towards the healing, absorb, ect. Sure we have SOTR for physical damage but did blizzard think about magical damage at all? This is an amazingly stupid nerf TBH and makes me glad Im thinking of switching to mist weaver.

Paladin will still be the strongest tank, there is only so many fights where the majority of damage is magical
Besides, you have only done normal mode, so why do you care?

[Morally Grey Storm]

Paladin will still be the strongest tank, there is only so many fights where the majority of damage is magical
Besides, you have only done normal mode, so why do you care?

because this nerf (for no logical reason) hits Ret as well?

[Nairobi]

I find it ironic Blizzard added haste to tank tier and then nerfed it.

Haste hasn't been nerfed, at all.

Eternal Flame HoT:
(711 + 8.19% * SP)*2*(1+BoG*(~)0.5)

With 3 BoG stacks:
(711 + 8.19% * SP)*5
3555 + 40.95% * SP every 3 sec
or
7110 + 81.8% * SP every 6 sec

vs.

Sacred Shield:
(343 + 117% * SP)*0.7
240 + 81.9% * SP every 6 sec

Obviously EF will have a overheal around 60-70%, while SS will have one around 10%...
Not worth it. Even if we would get it for free (T16 4P), it could only win if it would have the same overheal %.

Thanks. I hadn't mathed out the changes with the bumps up to EF and down to SS, but I had this feeling it would be within 5% of each other (because choices!). Even though, being that close makes SS a no brainer all day erry day.

It needed toned down, especially since it scaled so well with both haste AND AP/SP, but it still sucks. And yet, we still will take it 100% of the time.

because this nerf (for no logical reason) hits Ret as well?

The guy you quoted was talking about prot paladins (and MW monks). That is not to say that this change was logical, at least for Ret, but mayhaps Blizz sees Ret doing well (aka better than Holy) in arena and wants to nerf something. SS is an innocuous knob to turn for them (and also tunes down Prot pal simultaneously), without truly negatively impacting Ret PVP (or PVE most times).

No offense, but you're piping up a lot about "why would someone play this game?!?!" on, of all places, an internet forum for people who play this game. I feel we may not be the best audience for you.

[Morally Grey Storm]

No offense, but you're piping up a lot about "why would someone play this game?!?!" on, of all places, an internet forum for people who play this game. I feel we may not be the best audience for you.

Oooh, I am mostly truly sorry for asking legitimate questions and bringing logical conclusions as well as speaking up my mind. How fething rude of me.

[Nairobi]

Oooh, I am mostly truly sorry for asking legitimate questions and bringing logical conclusions as well as speaking up my mind. How fething rude of me.

If you managed to read the reply instead of getting so "fething" bent out of shape because someone doesn't agree with you, you would have seen that I agree that the change is quite peculiar for Ret, in terms of allowing or fostering a sense of "choice" between talents.
Currently, Ret (PVP) has zero talent options: you take LAotL, FOJ, SH, Clemency, HA, HPr. In PVE, you take the same except for SW > HA and ES > HPr. Weee, choice!
Prot isn't much better, in that we are pigeonholed into quite a few talents with no viable alternatives.

That's the issue with this entire catastrophe of a talent system. Blizz sought to give us a system that allowed for equal choice, except they didn't account for (or didn't think possible) the fact that the theorycrafting community would have the choices min/maxed out in 10 minutes.

There will ALWAYS be a better and a worse choice for talents, which begs the question (for Ret) why they're nerfing the lackluster talent at all? As I posited, it could be just an easy knob to turn for Ret, and more importantly Prot. Or, maybe there are just a lot of Ret's somewhere in the world using SS to become totally OP, that we all somehow missed. Either way, it's a silly change, and even though a nerf was warranted for Prot SS, 30% isn't enough to get anyone to take the other options, and it's just enough to get everyone pissed off.

But, you missed all of that, because I brought up the fact that you're campaigning to quit the game over a questionable nerf to a talent that's subpar for 2 specs of the class, and instead decided to address that.

[Deleted]

But adding them all together means (in this scenario) we'd be faced with ~180k SS ticks, which would pretty much gut the strategy, or at least make it far more prone to failure.

That would be with capped vengance ?
If average vengance, still looks insanely strong.
With capped it does look bit meh...Granted SS is passive ability for no resource cost but still :-/

[Nairobi]

Its with V-cap of 30% for 10m H (since I don't raid 25s and don't want to hazard guesses at their numbers).

However, the recent changes to V-scaling make me think that perhaps we have dodged the 30/50% caps for V in 5.4. If so, the values in that scenario go back up to ~400k SS ticks, which would be doable even if certainly and markedly nerfed.

[trystero]

That's the issue with this entire catastrophe of a talent system. Blizz sought to give us a system that allowed for equal choice, except they didn't account for (or didn't think possible) the fact that the theorycrafting community would have the choices min/maxed out in 10 minutes.

I think they accounted for it (they'd have to be extremely ignorant not to), it's just very difficult to make a compelling talent system that doesn't have slamdunk winners, which responds to three specs, and which must address two totally different game modes in PvE and PvP. It's one of those "we take the good with the bad" philosophies. The old system clearly didn't work, in that you always took the same talents, so they tried something different, and I'd say it's been a great change overall.

I know that I'm often changing talents in raids, as are many of my teammates. Some still insist on doing it every freaking fight (I'm too lazy to bother on farm bosses).

http://www.worldofwargraphs.com/stat...0-0-0-0-0.html

Taking stock of those numbers, we do see some slamdunk winners now and then for the three specs. That's like overhead, completely unavoidable. But if you look at the ultimate breakdown, the distribution's pretty solid. Except in rare circumstances, each tier's got at least two competitors, and the "lackluster" talent you can find having great representation in the other game mode or being useful owing to encounter specifics (like Divine Purpose is lackluster for Ret, but it's solid on some fights like Horridon and Tortos when killing bats). And I personally love Divine Purpose and use it when I raid as Ret, as it's my offset and I'm only in there DPS on farm bosses.

Wonder what the numbers would look like in the old system? I know it wasn't quite the same setup, but we could instead present a sample talent tree, and we'd find that probably 98% of players copied it verbatim.

[Morally Grey Storm]

Either way, it's a silly change, and even though a nerf was warranted for Prot SS, 30% isn't enough to get anyone to take the other options, and it's just enough to get everyone pissed off.

that's what I was talking about you feth-head.

But, you missed all of that, because I brought up the fact that you're campaigning to quit the game over a questionable nerf to a talent that's subpar for 2 specs of the class, and instead decided to address that.

You are attributing me with something I'm not doing.
I'm not "campaigning to quit the game"
I'm campaigning for people to start and think for a little bit.

[Deleted]

@Storm Please dont corrupt the paladin forums. General Discussion is that way.

[Morally Grey Storm]

@Storm Please dont corrupt the paladin forums. General Discussion is that way.

oh, so pointing out obvious logical flaws is deemed "corruption" these days?

Please ignore me so I don't have to put up with your incessant blabbering.


Do not create posts soley to bicker. - Krekko

[Nairobi]

I think they accounted for it (they'd have to be extremely ignorant not to), it's just very difficult to make a compelling talent system that doesn't have slamdunk winners, which responds to three specs, and which must address two totally different game modes in PvE and PvP. It's one of those "we take the good with the bad" philosophies. The old system clearly didn't work, in that you always took the same talents, so they tried something different, and I'd say it's been a great change overall.

I know that I'm often changing talents in raids, as are many of my teammates. Some still insist on doing it every freaking fight (I'm too lazy to bother on farm bosses).

http://www.worldofwargraphs.com/stat...0-0-0-0-0.html

Taking stock of those numbers, we do see some slamdunk winners now and then for the three specs. That's like overhead, completely unavoidable. But if you look at the ultimate breakdown, the distribution's pretty solid. Except in rare circumstances, each tier's got at least two competitors, and the "lackluster" talent you can find having great representation in the other game mode or being useful owing to encounter specifics (like Divine Purpose is lackluster for Ret, but it's solid on some fights like Horridon and Tortos when killing bats). And I personally love Divine Purpose and use it when I raid as Ret, as it's my offset and I'm only in there DPS on farm bosses.

Wonder what the numbers would look like in the old system? I know it wasn't quite the same setup, but we could instead present a sample talent tree, and we'd find that probably 98% of players copied it verbatim.

I think that's a valid point, specifically for Hybrids. But if you look at pure-DPS, you'll see VERY little disparity in talent choice. What would be interesting to me (and likely a bit harder to guarantee) is talent spec breakdown for classes based on progression levels. As you noted, DivPurp is essentially the "bottom" talent for Ret, but lots of players find it fun. However, at a high level/progression level, you'll find many people forego "fun" for "effective", which is all about the numbers. Of coruse, this late in the tier, that can get muddled as people just gravitate towards the fun and/or lazy (like we both seem to do ).

Prot has a lot more leeway than Ret in talent choices, specifically based on tank strat, gear, # of tanks/comp, and personal choice. Tier 15,
60, 75, and 90 all can have arguments made for their use. I think that's just based on the flexibility and adaptability of tanking versus something more mathematically and numerically constricted (like DPS).

And yes, perhaps the older talent systems had "traps" for new players or had cookie-cutter choices for PVE and/or PVP, but that's going to occur anytime and in any realm of play. I suppose it's just a neccesary evil, but all things considered, I'd at least like to get the old trees back so I can 90% of my Ret abilities back from Holy!

[Snuzzfizzle]

Eternal Flame HoT:
(711 + 8.19% * SP)*2*(1+BoG*(~)0.5)

With 3 BoG stacks:
(711 + 8.19% * SP)*5
3555 + 40.95% * SP every 3 sec
or
7110 + 81.8% * SP every 6 sec

vs.

Sacred Shield:
(343 + 117% * SP)*0.7
240 + 81.9% * SP every 6 sec

Just tested EF vs SS on the PTR against Galleon.
With ~100k vengeance Sacred Shield absorbed roughly 100k/3.8 seconds while EF healed me for roughly 160k/1.8 seconds at 5 BoG stacks.

The way I see it, EF should be equally effective if not even more effective on high vengeance bosses. A 170k/1.8s heal at 100k vengeance sounds absurd. Granted, most if it will surely be an overheal but Sacred Shield has an overheal rate of about 20-40% for me as well.

[Nairobi]

While EF is off the GCD (which is a nice nod in it's direction), it DOES cost 1 ShotR per cast.
While EF is great at healing up between swings, it cannot prevent damage, like SS does. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
EF looks to be a great asset in assisting healers with recovery, but not so much with stabilizing. This would be great, but for the fact that SOI is already doing this for us quite well.

I'm not writing it off, as with t16 4pc, the ability to fire off an EF for "free" negates one of its biggest counter-arguments, but I still would feel "naked" without SS.

[Deleted]

Just tested EF vs SS on the PTR against Galleon.
With ~100k vengeance Sacred Shield absorbed roughly 100k/3.8 seconds while EF healed me for roughly 160k/1.8 seconds at 5 BoG stacks.

The way I see it, EF should be equally effective if not even more effective on high vengeance bosses. A 170k/1.8s heal at 100k vengeance sounds absurd. Granted, most if it will surely be an overheal but Sacred Shield has an overheal rate of about 20-40% for me as well.

If you would use it at 5 stacks then around those values are expectable.
Now the tricky part is, that you have to use HoPo for it. I checked it for 3 BoG stacks, as those who will game the 4P T16 + DP, will use it regardless of EF HoT or not. So it had no such loss there. You could push it further to 5 stacks, but then you would loose part of the benefit from the 4P.

Sacred Shield will also only over-heal if you don't take any damage, which can happen by tank-swaps. But then again, you can cast it on your coo-tank too! Especially now, that it grants the first tick instantly. This is partially true for EF too, but it won't benefit from the +100% from self-cast and the BoG stacks. It would also have way higher over-heal rates. My SoI normally overheals me by 60-70% when I solo-tank. And that is a relatively small snipe-heal. SS while actively tanking is near zero. If we would use EF rotationally, most of the base heal would end up as overheal, and I sincerely doubt that the HoTs over-heal rate would be better than that of SoI.

And if we don't have the 4P, then we even have to calculate in the damage and mitigation loss from skipping a SotR which would be never worth it.

[Snuzzfizzle]

If you would use it at 5 stacks then around those values are expectable.
Now the tricky part is, that you have to use HoPo for it. I checked it for 3 BoG stacks, as those who will game the 4P T16 + DP, will use it regardless of EF HoT or not. So it had no such loss there. You could push it further to 5 stacks, but then you would loose part of the benefit from the 4P.

Even with the 4p there is no point in using EF with less than 5 BoG stacks. Like, why would you? You'd just use EF to get the highest possible EF ticks not to use the 4p proc as often as possible.

Also, watching the Slootbag stream confirms my expectation. A ~300k/1.8s HoT looks awesome. EF and SS should be equal after the SS nerf/EF buff. I'll surely give EF.

[Deleted]

Even with the 4p there is no point in using EF with less than 5 BoG stacks. Like, why would you? You'd just use EF to get the highest possible EF ticks not to use the 4p proc as often as possible.

Also, watching the Slootbag stream confirms my expectation. A ~300k/1.8s HoT looks awesome. EF and SS should be equal after the SS nerf/EF buff. I'll surely give EF.

With 5 BoG stacks we are at (assuming ~50% mastery, buffed, which will be reachable next tier with haste cap too )
(711 + 8.19% * SP)*7
4977 + 57.33% * SP
^ is the HoT tick.
For a 300k tick you would need ~515k Spell Power.
Spell Power is half of the paladins attack power.
That means this would need ~1M Attack power.

Even if we assume that the tooltip isn't yet updated, it would need 730k attack power. (With the obviously nerfed, and possibly later capped veng.)

On the other side SS would shield you for:

240 + 81.9% * 515k
422k every ~3 second.
(or 300k if we assume the tooltip is wrong.)

And then we would have to see how much the lost HoPo cost us. Especially if we don't have the 4P. But even if we have the 4P, we used it only to 3/5th of it's potential in HoPo generation. It isn't as bad as it was, but it is far from great. It would have also way higher over-heal, and while it could be arguable, that SS creates the same amount of over-heal to the healers, it being an absorb has a better chance of saving your life under normal circumstances.

[Snuzzfizzle]

With 5 BoG stacks we are at (assuming ~50% mastery, buffed, which will be reachable next tier with haste cap too )
(711 + 8.19% * SP)*7
4977 + 57.33% * SP
^ is the HoT tick.
For a 300k tick you would need ~515k Spell Power.
Spell Power is half of the paladins attack power.
That means this would need ~1M Attack power.

My math is really terrible so please correct me in case I made any mistakes:

711 + 8.19% * SP is the base value for EF at one HP.
So shouldn't it be 711 + 8,19 % * SP * 3 * 2 (for EF selfcast) * 2.6 (for 5 BoG Stacks)
In which case we'd need roughly 440k AP (which translates to about 350k vengeance) to get 220k SP to reach the 300k HoT.
That's a 300k Hot every ~1.8-1.9 seconds.
Sacred Shield would absorb roughly 180k every 3.8 seconds at the same Spellpower value.

So we're comparing a 300k hot every ~1.9 seconds to a 180k absorb every 3.8 seconds.

How do we ever reach 50% Mastery, by the way? Wouldn't that require 25k Mastery on top of the.. what.. 22k(?) Haste we need to reach the Haste cap.