about the 3 priest dots

[Grath]

Hi guys im sorry if this has been said before

but what is the coefficient for DP and SWP, i already know that VT is .4 of spell power

thanks!

[Implaus]

I've only really paid attention to the co-efficent to the entire spell, and not per tick...but, last I read was:

VT - 200%
SW:P - 110%
DP - 80%

tbh though, there was something recent done with DP...and it's very possible that 80% isn't accurate anymore.

[Grath]

thank you very much

[vigilpriest]

DP, I believe base dmg was to be reduced and coeff going up...could be wrong though.

[Worshaka]

I've only really paid attention to the co-efficent to the entire spell, and not per tick...but, last I read was:

VT - 200%
SW:P - 110%
DP - 80%

tbh though, there was something recent done with DP...and it's very possible that 80% isn't accurate anymore.

DP is wrong

The coefficent of a Dot is derived by it's duration... a 15 sec duration receives a coefficent of 1 or 0.2 per tick (assuming ticks occur in 3 sec intervals which they do 99.9% of the time). VT's coefficent was doubled to 2 or 0.4 per tick. SW:P had it's proper coefficent nerfed for balancing issues, it should be 18/15 = 1.2 but is 1.1 or 0.183 per tick.

DP used to be around 80% but in 3.03 the base damage was reduced and the coefficent raised. Of course blizzard don't tell you what the set the coefficents at, people actually playtest on beta and get a sample of numbers and just work it out. If you look on Elitist Jerks you can see a discussion about the coefficent being 1.48 and they believe this number was derived from the duration 24/15 = 1.6 - a healing penalty of 7.5%, however DP heals for 15% so the thought is they halved the normal penalty to ensure the damage didn't scale too poorly.

Personally I dislike Blizzard playing with coefficents. If they make a rule that a coefficent is derived by the cast time or dot duration they should stick to it and fix spells in different ways, be it adjusting base damage/healing, altering cast times, mana costs or abilities like snares etc to suit the power of the spell.

[lsfreak]

Personally I dislike Blizzard playing with coefficents. If they make a rule that a coefficent is derived by the cast time or dot duration they should stick to it and fix spells in different ways, be it adjusting base damage/healing, altering cast times, mana costs or abilities like snares etc to suit the power of the spell.

What about Mind Flay then? You'd prefer it's still at 57%? Cuz that's what the formula puts it at... (3/5 + 5% universal penalty for slow)
Plus altering the base damage does very little; for example, they could have simply made VT do much more base damage, but then it would be completely overpowered at low gear levels and underpowered at high gear levels. And you also run into fun stuff like Soul Fire and Pyroblast getting a 170% coefficient, and Curse of Doom a 400% coefficient.

[Worshaka]

Incorrect...

MF is a 3 sec channel... therefore the coefficent should be 3/3.5 = 0.857, it's then supposed to receive a 5% penalty for the snare effect which equates to 0.814... MF was artifically set to 0.57 and as I said before I disagree with messing with coefficents... it has now been changed to 0.771 which is still below what it should be but a hell of a lot better than 0.57

[lsfreak]

I appear to be out of date on my formulas; I swear at one point all channeled spells followed a 5-second base.
But that would still mean VT should only be 100% of damage, Soul Fire gets 170%, Doom gets 400%, etc.

[Worshaka]

I appear to be out of date on my formulas; I swear at one point all channeled spells followed a 5-second base.
But that would still mean VT should only be 100% of damage, Soul Fire gets 170%, Doom gets 400%, etc.

Exactly... the coefficent on VT got doubled in 3.03... it's now so OP I guarantee it will get nerfed in LK. Anytime Blizzard mess with coefficents it results in problems. If they make a rule which is supposed to determine coefficents imo don't mess with the rule... this would ensure all spells scale on an even keel instead of having spell x scale worse and spell y scale better. If something is broken fix the mana cost, cast time, base damage, effect and leave the coefficent alone.

[lsfreak]

this would ensure all spells scale on an even keel instead of having spell x scale worse and spell y scale better.

Except that's not how it works. Spells are uneven from the start, because there's stuff with slows and stuff that have DoT components and stuff that could get insane amounts of bonus damage and stuff that doesn't scale with crit or haste. Adjusting the base damage does NOTHING but make a spell overpowered now, and underpowered later. Lowering mana costs does nothing to fix shitty damage. Altering both base damage and cast speed might be an option, but it has the huge side effect of potentially changing how an entire spec works, and does nothing for DoT scaling.
And to say it's a "rule" that spells are x/3.5 is fairly similar to the "rule" that every talent point provides 1% more DPS. It hasn't been strictly-followed rule since WoW went live, it's merely a starting point. Not to mention they've changed the rules themselves multiple times (AoE caps, AoE coefficient penalties, channeling coefficients, the whole mess with binary spells, etc).

[Worshaka]

I disagree, I can also use your own logic in reverse to prove my point. As an example you point out that adjusting the base damage makes a spell OP now, Ok later on then underpowered at very end game. I tend to agree with you but sometimes adjustments of base damage are a good solution (but not always). So lets reverse that logic... adjusting a coefficent down is usually done when the spell is very powerful to begin with. So no change is noticed to begin with, maybe none in the mid game but at the very end game the spell scaled poorly and is now underpowered.

Coefficents describe how spells scale with respect to your spellpower. If you stick to a standard rule all spells would scale in exactly the same way, thus providing a balance in how spells scale with gear. If this stance was adopted it could help allevaite balancing issues as you can accurately predict how each spell will scale.

I would prefer when they make a rule or formula that describes how a mechanic works that don't break that rule/formula. By breaking the formula, imo it proves that either the formula itself is broken or some other aspect of the spell/ability is broken... I would argue that the formula isn't broken on account that very few spells have their coefficents artifically changed. So if the majority of spells scale properly then surely the problem is with the mechanics, base damage or something other than scalling with the minority of spells that have been adjusted?

So change their mana costs, base damage, effect, cast time or rebuild the spell as it makes a lot more sense to fix the minority than the coefficent which is fine for a majority of cases.

I have to say that the 1% dps per talent point argument is irrelevant... this doesn't boil down to a mathematical formula that results in a true or false statement. It's a guide to provide balance, not a rule and I don't see how it applies to the coefficent formula.

As for other types of formulas/rules that get broken... I don't feel they should be either... again if something doesn't work according to how formulas describe game mechanics, the game mechanic isn't broken, the individual spell/ability is and that should be fixed... just a case of not needing to rewrite the book IMHO.

PS. Mark my words, the coefficent on VT will be nerfed... and I won't be suprised to see it nerfed hard.

[antidan]

I disagree, I can also use your own logic in reverse to prove my point. As an example you point out that adjusting the base damage makes a spell OP now, Ok later on then underpowered at very end game. I tend to agree with you but sometimes adjustments of base damage are a good solution (but not always). So lets reverse that logic... adjusting a coefficent down is usually done when the spell is very powerful to begin with. So no change is noticed to begin with, maybe none in the mid game but at the very end game the spell scaled poorly and is now underpowered.

Coefficents describe how spells scale with respect to your spellpower. If you stick to a standard rule all spells would scale in exactly the same way, thus providing a balance in how spells scale with gear. If this stance was adopted it could help allevaite balancing issues as you can accurately predict how each spell will scale.

I would prefer when they make a rule or formula that describes how a mechanic works that don't break that rule/formula. By breaking the formula, imo it proves that either the formula itself is broken or some other aspect of the spell/ability is broken... I would argue that the formula isn't broken on account that very few spells have their coefficents artifically changed. So if the majority of spells scale properly then surely the problem is with the mechanics, base damage or something other than scalling with the minority of spells that have been adjusted?

So change their mana costs, base damage, effect, cast time or rebuild the spell as it makes a lot more sense to fix the minority than the coefficent which is fine for a majority of cases.

I have to say that the 1% dps per talent point argument is irrelevant... this doesn't boil down to a mathematical formula that results in a true or false statement. It's a guide to provide balance, not a rule and I don't see how it applies to the coefficent formula.

As for other types of formulas/rules that get broken... I don't feel they should be either... again if something doesn't work according to how formulas describe game mechanics, the game mechanic isn't broken, the individual spell/ability is and that should be fixed... just a case of not needing to rewrite the book IMHO.

PS. Mark my words, the coefficent on VT will be nerfed... and I won't be suprised to see it nerfed hard.

Standard Coeffs is dumb in the SP and Aff lock case because much of their damage does not scale with haste. Thus the dots need special attention to make sure that the damage they do is competitive at all gear levels.

Its actually really easy to manipulate base damages and spell coeffs so that a Spriest and an Aff lock would do nearly the same dps at all levels even though they use different number of dots an Spriest have a channel and locks a cast as the main nuke.

Blizzard failed to recognize this in TBC so we got Affliction locks and spriests raping face in gruul and then still doing 1700 dps on brut.

[Worshaka]

Personally I think the fact that haste doesnt scale dots is a seperate issue... and again something that should be fixed in different ways than messing with the coefficents.

As an example the new SF ability that increases dot damage = to your crit % rate allowed crit to scale dots. So there are clever ways around these issues without having to mess with coefficents on particular spells.

[yeknom366]

I've only really paid attention to the co-efficent to the entire spell, and not per tick...but, last I read was:

VT - 200%
SW:P - 110%
DP - 80%

tbh though, there was something recent done with DP...and it's very possible that 80% isn't accurate anymore.

base coefficients, or including talents and selfbuffs?

[Artex]

base coefficients, or including talents and selfbuffs?

There aren't any talents that increase spell coefficients...

[Devia]

Apparently Worshaka thinks he knows more than everyone at Blizzard. Why don't you get a job there? : Please don't act like you are better than them when you have no idea what all they go through.

[lsfreak]

As an example the new SF ability that increases dot damage = to your crit % rate allowed crit to scale dots. So there are clever ways around these issues without having to mess with coefficents on particular spells.

Of course, that still doesn't make DoT's cale as well as DD, because the way it works doesn't include debuffs on the boss... which is 13% crit we're missing out on.
Now, I'm not saying the way Blizz does things is perfect, but the fact is that manipulating coefficients is an easy and, for the most part, easily-balanced way of making certain classes scale better or worse than others.

[Worshaka]

I totally accept it's a way of balancing things but my point is it's an unbalanced way to do it, removes consistency and creates problems in the long term.

Lets use VT for an example... it should have a coefficent of 1, however developers have doubled the coefficent to 2 as a way to fix spriest dps issues. So all these testing has taken place on beta with people in povo pvp gear upto T7 eqivalency (and maybe a step further)... and it all looks ok... but when we get to T8 & T9 and numbers get bigger the damage on VT is going to scale at double the rate of everything else.

I guarantee once we hit that level VT will get nerfed... so here is my point. Why make a change that has a limited lifespan? Why not work a fix that doesnt mess with the coefficent so it will suit all gear levels? Mucking with coefficents is only going to promote inbalance once you pass the content the change was intended for.

Just let all spells scale in the same way and fix problems in more creative ways... personally changing a coefficent says to me that finding a real fix was in the too hard basket. I have no doubt that happens... changing 1 little variable number is pretty easy in comparison to rewriting a spell but it's a short term, narrow minded approach.

[antidan]

I totally accept it's a way of balancing things but my point is it's an unbalanced way to do it, removes consistency and creates problems in the long term.

Lets use VT for an example... it should have a coefficent of 1, however developers have doubled the coefficent to 2 as a way to fix spriest dps issues. So all these testing has taken place on beta with people in povo pvp gear upto T7 eqivalency (and maybe a step further)... and it all looks ok... but when we get to T8 & T9 and numbers get bigger the damage on VT is going to scale at double the rate of everything else.

I guarantee once we hit that level VT will get nerfed... so here is my point. Why make a change that has a limited lifespan? Why not work a fix that doesnt mess with the coefficent so it will suit all gear levels? Mucking with coefficents is only going to promote inbalance once you pass the content the change was intended for.

Just let all spells scale in the same way and fix problems in more creative ways... personally changing a coefficent says to me that finding a real fix was in the too hard basket. I have no doubt that happens... changing 1 little variable number is pretty easy in comparison to rewriting a spell but it's a short term, narrow minded approach.

No, the fact is that it was changed to 200% so it could be competitive at all gear levels, because at 100% it is not.

Also there are talents that increase coefficients for certain spells: Wrath of Cenarius increases scaling of both wrath and starfire, Empowered fire does it for Fireball and FFbolt, Empowered frostbolt, etc. Please at least know what you are talking about.