[Prot] WoD/Legion Alpha Discussion

[sexybeast]

ok guys fast question to prot pallys who tank CM silver or better:
1. SoT or SoI for single target?
2. What flask should i use stamina or strange also with pre pontion str for better dps or maybe bonus armor?

Sot for single target if it's fine with you healer (if they can keep you up). I tanked the whole iron docks in sot by hero derp when it was the daily t'other day and survived just fine
Bonus Armor I belive equals strength in terms of dos output but also gives you the extra Armor bouns

[Deleted]

sorry noobish question: Can I get an explanation of the graph shown above (what is it actually trying to show)? The axes are not labeled, and is the rate of change the important point or the location of the line as compared to the others?

The graph expresses Theck-Meloree Index (commonly referred to as TMI) rating on the y-axis as a function of a variety of stats on the x-axis. Both the relative value of the functions as well as the derivative of a certain function in a certain point are relevant values, in the sense that the former gives us information about which stat is optimal to gear for, and the latter, if it fluctuates wildly, can inform us either of a localized variance (as is the case when plotting Haste with the current Seraphim APL) or in certain cases of discrete breakpoints where certain stats rapidly lose value.

On the note of stats rapidly losing value at certain breakpoints, this certainly is not uncommon - 50% haste being one of the better-known examples. I've actually been wondering (primarily directed at Theck) whether, since we cannot realistically gear around discrete breakpoints any more without likely over- or undershooting the mark to quite some degree, some measure of total contribution towards TMI reduction would be a useful metric for comparative analysis?

Assume we have a number of stat-dependent TMI functions - y(mastery), y(haste), y(multistrike), etc - and that some of these functions behave in a more or less linear matter while others (say, haste), behave erratically and have both major peaks and valleys. Would comparative analysis of the integrals of these functions over a given stat range not give us a rough estimate of what "stacking" a certain stat does for TMI compared to another, or am I completely mistaken?

[Seani]

I think haste as a stat is going to improve in value, with the 6.0.3 hotfixes (Crusaders Srike, Righteous Hammer also causes Grand Crusader). I think haste should be above multistrike and crit in stat priority for holyshield builds, but that's imo.

[Kanadei]

I think haste as a stat is going to improve in value, with the 6.0.3 hotfixes (Crusaders Srike, Righteous Hammer also causes Grand Crusader). I think haste should be above multistrike and crit in stat priority for holyshield builds, but that's imo.

A lot of people saying this as a theory, very few people putting in the work to prove it.

[hashtags]

Crit is way better than haste. My kind of build was like ba>crit>mastery>versality>haste>ms.

Maybe haste is better than versality now, doesn't rly matter much tho tbh

*Cough* will swap crit with mastery :

ba > mastery > crit > rest

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

ok guys fast question to prot pallys who tank CM silver or better:
1. SoT or SoI for single target?
2. What flask should i use stamina or strange also with pre pontion str for better dps or maybe bonus armor?

Is the potion just Armor or is it Bonus Armor? Just Armor doesn't give the offensive benefit.

[Deleted]

Is the potion just Armor or is it Bonus Armor? Just Armor doesn't give the offensive benefit.

Potion is BA. It's fucking OP. Use it.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Potion is BA. It's fucking OP. Use it.

I now have 214 of them :O

[hashtags]

Theck made a new post regarding the recent changes

http://www.sacredduty.net/2014/11/26...le-with-haste/

[Theck]

If I may - and I realize this is a shit-ton of work, most likely - I would suggest running two separate series of sims every expac if you can at all find the time for it. Very many of your avid readers are expecting to be wearing at least some blues for most of Mythic progression, and having good, reliable data on what performs well during progression while we're still nominally undergeared is of far greater value than knowing what stats will perform the best on farm.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think using a T17H gear profile to run sims gives an inaccurate picture of the state of things during progression ; the T17H sims are more appropriate for ascertaining what gear should be used during T18 progression assuming stat-and-talent status quo than they are for ascertaining what the best talents are at the start of the expac while we're still secondary-starved in shitty gear.

Well sure, I'd like to sim all sorts of configurations. My wife and family would also like to see me once in a while though. :P

The choice of T17H (note H, not M) was intentional, since it should roughly approximate the gear you're wearing when you start working on Mythic bosses. I figured that was the most relevant to the majority of players who actually care about min/maxing. Keep in mind that you will have two full normal and heroic clears under your belt before Mythic opens, along with gear accumulated from challenge mode dailies and crafted items. I don't think it's reasonable to expect anyone to step into Mythic Highmaul in ilvl 630 or less, and it's certainly not reasonable to assume that for Mythic BRF.

Am I correct in assuming your comment about T18 progression is based on thinking I meant T17M instead of T17H?

Also, I should add that running sims for all kinds of pre-raid configurations isn't really necessary since you have the tools to do this better yourself. I've written some very clear "how-to sim" guides on my blog that explain how to import your character and generate plots or stat weights.

- - - Updated - - -

sorry noobish question: Can I get an explanation of the graph shown above (what is it actually trying to show)? The axes are not labeled, and is the rate of change the important point or the location of the line as compared to the others?

As PraiseTheSun said, it's a plot of TMI vs. the amount of stat added or removed. Each curve shows you how increasing (or decreasing) the amount of that stat you have changes your TMI. A line with a steeper negative slope means it's decreasing TMI more rapidly, and thus a better survival stat.

- - - Updated - - -

I've actually been wondering (primarily directed at Theck) whether, since we cannot realistically gear around discrete breakpoints any more without likely over- or undershooting the mark to quite some degree, some measure of total contribution towards TMI reduction would be a useful metric for comparative analysis?

Assume we have a number of stat-dependent TMI functions - y(mastery), y(haste), y(multistrike), etc - and that some of these functions behave in a more or less linear matter while others (say, haste), behave erratically and have both major peaks and valleys. Would comparative analysis of the integrals of these functions over a given stat range not give us a rough estimate of what "stacking" a certain stat does for TMI compared to another, or am I completely mistaken?

Well, what you'd really want is the average value, which is by definition an integral for a continuous function (i.e. int_a^b x dx / (b-a) ). That's sort of what you can infer from the plots, based on how the more erratic lines behave over the entire graph. Of course there are numerical methods to approximate that integral using a number of discrete points over that curve (in fact, this is one method AMR is using to try and produce more accurate stat weights for certain classes).

Implementing that sort of thing in SimC is on my (extremely long) to-do list, but I'm not likely to happen before the new year at any rate. It would take more time than a normal stat weight calculation, obviously, so it'd have to be some sort of "advanced mode" toggle that was disabled by default.

[Deleted]

Well sure, I'd like to sim all sorts of configurations. My wife and family would also like to see me once in a while though. :P

The choice of T17H (note H, not M) was intentional, since it should roughly approximate the gear you're wearing when you start working on Mythic bosses. I figured that was the most relevant to the majority of players who actually care about min/maxing. Keep in mind that you will have two full normal and heroic clears under your belt before Mythic opens, along with gear accumulated from challenge mode dailies and crafted items. I don't think it's reasonable to expect anyone to step into Mythic Highmaul in ilvl 630 or less, and it's certainly not reasonable to assume that for Mythic BRF.

Am I correct in assuming your comment about T18 progression is based on thinking I meant T17M instead of T17H?

Also, I should add that running sims for all kinds of pre-raid configurations isn't really necessary since you have the tools to do this better yourself. I've written some very clear "how-to sim" guides on my blog that explain how to import your character and generate plots or stat weights.

I think you're underestimating the degree to which some guilds (especially now that there is no avoidance gear), including my own, funnel gear to anyone that isn't a tank. If I recall correctly, Treckie had a meagre iLvl of 555 and Sco something similar (in the case of Treckie naturally deflated by using the T15 4pc for all of progression) when Method downed Garrosh Heroic, and while I'm not suggesting we should all expect to clear content in nearly that amount of time, I would personally be very surprised if I had an iLvl much higher than 655-660ish by the time my guild kills Mythic Imperator. Even with two full clears under our belt, I don't think T17H is accurately representative of what most high-end progression raiders (i.e, the majority of the serious readership of your blog) will progress in. T17N would likely have been a better fit, in my honest opinion, if not the Heroic dungeon gear I initially suggested.

I also think that the lack of reforging and inherent gem sockets (and especially so the fact that mastery gear is wanted by basically every plate spec at this point) means we will very likely go a long way between upgrades; coupled with the short length of the initial "half-tier", I think this makes it quite unlikely that any but the most fortunate will hit BRF in a full Mythic Highmaul gearset.

[Seani]

Haste makes your rotation smoother. Good if your itemizing mastery. BA of course is the best, and I think it is that way for most tank classes, however, you can't gem BA. You only gain the stat from certain items and of course enchants. The reason I dislike crit rate for protection paladin is because it is inconsistent. You can get crit Wog and parries some of the time, but not 100% of the time. I feel you cant really measure total mitigation against a consistent build, but that's imo. Mastery you can control your mitigation to some extant. Of course im running holy shield, some of you might be running seraphim, im not sure what the meta is for seraphim.

[Kanadei]

Haste makes your rotation smoother. Good if your itemizing mastery. BA of course is the best, and I think it is that way for most tank classes, however, you can't gem BA. You only gain the stat from certain items and of course enchants. The reason I dislike crit rate for protection paladin is because it is inconsistent. You can get crit Wog and parries some of the time, but not 100% of the time. I feel you cant really measure total mitigation against a consistent build, but that's imo.

No offense but I don't think you really understand how critical strike works for us.

Critical strike, thanks to riposte, gives us a flat bonus to parry chance based on 100% of your critical rating (you don't "crit parries" you just get more of them).

On top of this, as SS can now crit (along with healing abilities you appropriately mentioned like WoG) which means crit results in better survivability from ticks of spells like SS, Light's Hammer, SoI etc.

Ofcourse the additional benefit is that it also buffs your DPS substantially, and as someone pointed out earlier in this thread - dead bosses don't do any damage to you at all.

In summary: Crit doesn't provide inconsistent mitigation, it provides inconsistent dps increases (although even that is arguable since you can just mathematically predict a likely increase over the duration of the fight based on your crit chance) so your argument is flawed.

Also this is by no means extensively researched so if I missed something someone feel free to add it.

[Seani]

Yeah I mentioned you parry with crit, so my understanding of crit isn't flawed. If you read what I said consistent mitigation is better than total mitigation. Grand Crusader now improves with haste with the hotfix. Crit understandable increases total mitigation, im not disputing that. Crit is total avoidance, you avoid damage some of the time. Play how you want, I don't think you've done the math either.

[hashtags]

You know I'm not going to swap to mastery untill I get 4pc. I just don't see any reason to abandon my precious parry. Also I think I have more mastery than some people who gem and enchant mastery ; p.

Only if I could stop getting crit haste items from cm daily though.

Well considering we/I won't be getting 4pc for a while (no tier set in Highmaul & tank gets tier last). I keep thinking to myself that I should try going crit>mastery but I dunno everyone else says otherwise. Guess it's something I need to try.

[Seani]

Well considering we/I won't be getting 4pc for a while (no tier set in Highmaul & tank gets tier last). I keep thinking to myself that I should try going crit>mastery but I dunno everyone else says otherwise. Guess it's something I need to try.

im arguing that haste is better than crit. Mastery is undoubtedly better, I don't think there is one guide out there for any of the Prot paladin "builds" that puts crit above mastery.

[hashtags]

im arguing that haste is better than crit. Mastery is undoubtedly better, I don't think there is one guide out there for any of the Prot paladin "builds" that puts crit above mastery.

:/ well I guess you missed the new Theck article which proved the new changes made haste worse then how it was. It still is our weakest stat. I recommend reading it. It gives very deep insight as to why we used to prefer haste and why it is total ass for us now.

http://www.sacredduty.net/2014/11/26...le-with-haste/

I do agree with him alot on the attunement stat. As much as I will miss the 2.94 sec crusader strike rotation I don't want blizzard to shoehorn haste on to us. No other tanking class is going through so much flux when it comes to there secondary. Blizz should either change our attunement make it mastery (cough so lazel be forced to choose mastery) or just get rid of attunement all together which considering blizz won't happen until next expansion.

[Seani]

:/ well I guess you missed the new Theck article which proved the new changes made haste worse then how it was. It still is our weakest stat. I recommend reading it. It gives very deep insight as to why we used to prefer haste and why it is total ass for us now.

http://www.sacredduty.net/2014/11/26...le-with-haste/

I do agree with him alot on the attunement stat. As much as I will miss the 2.94 sec crusader strike rotation I don't want blizzard to shoehorn haste on to us. No other tanking class is going through so much flux when it comes to there secondary. Blizz should either change our attunement make it mastery (cough so lazel be forced to choose mastery) or just get rid of attunement all together which considering blizz won't happen until next expansion.

Haste isn't that great of a stat and clearly multstike and crit outperform it in total mitigation. Unfortunately they are wildcard stats, meaning they outperform it only some of the time. and that some of the time means your mitigation wont be smooth for the healer. Based on Theck's charts Mastery will outdo crit in total mitigation everytime until you are above 70% sor value. Haste, although not a great stat helps with your sor rotation. IMO haste is better than crit for mastery builds. It isn't a great stat but I like it better than crit. If your running seraphim maybe crit is better, because of the higher base crit you get from seraphim, I don't know I run holy shield.

And to clarify theck was saying they didn't fix haste, not that haste is worse of a stat than it was before the hotfix. Saying it was worse makes no mathematical sense.

[Deleted]

Haste isn't that great of a stat and clearly multstike and crit outperform it in total mitigation. Unfortunately they are wildcard stats, meaning they outperform it only some of the time. and that some of the time means your mitigation wont be smooth for the healer. Based on Theck's charts Mastery will outdo crit in total mitigation everytime until you are above 70% sor value. Haste, although not a great stat helps with your sor rotation. IMO haste is better than crit for mastery builds. It isn't a great stat but I like it better than crit. If your running seraphim maybe crit is better, because of the higher base crit you get from seraphim, I don't know I run holy shield.

And to clarify theck was saying they didn't fix haste, not that haste is worse of a stat than it was before the hotfix. Saying it was worse makes no mathematical sense.

Did you actually read it?

"The first thing you’ll probably notice is that haste is solidly at the back of the pack now. In other words, these changes reduced haste’s value more than they increased it."

Also sticking to one talent, especially with the huge diversity our t100 talents have, is a bad idea. Saying that you run Holy Shield and instantly dismissing any other talent is silly. Holy Shield sucks in some cases.

Any fight where you get downtime as the tank makes holy shield worse.
Taunt switch fights make Seraphim miles better just because you get a much greater coverage whilst having threat on the boss. Holy shield excels on multi-target high-uptime fights because you always want something hitting you in order to gain the most from your Holy Shield

Also, saying Haste is worse makes perfect mathematical sense, if you actually read the blog post. Theck goes into great detail about it. Having greater coverage on SotR, when the base value of SotR is terrible means it actually isnt doing alot to reduce incoming damage

[hashtags]

Regardless of haste and everything. The best change of the hot fix was the change to Grand Crusader. It's gangster now.