Touched by the Light -- a backwards-looking talent?

[Splug]

To be fair, if we're looking at a % from stamina conversion... if 1 spellpower ~ 1 AP, assuming the goal is to ballance it off the threat generated, you actually are getting more item value from the spellpower conversion than the AP conversion. They're not going to ballance it around how much item value it gives, such that it'd change to 50% -> AP just to keep the same ivalue level as spellpower. So while in gear selection, AP more be efficient ivalue-wise than spellpower, I don't think that's really a factor here.

The spellpower conversion gives some scaling to the abilities which are not AP-scaled. Otherwise, you end up with the old pre-tbc eviscerate problem: as gear improves, rogues keep doing more and more damage, but eviscerate was still a fixed value. Eventually, Sinister Strike was better damage and the only finisher worth using was SnD. As for which way is simpler, I don't think either way is really any more complicated. If it's designed such that X stamina results in a threat increase of Y, they're good to go whether Y is reached via spellpower or attack power. Isolate the step from the rest of the equation entirely, and it really shouldn't matter which way it's implemented. I'll admit it looks really wierd, especially given the warrior/spellpower analogy, but ultimately I don't think it's any more or less complicated.

-Splug

[Lore]

But the whole "healing in prot gear" argument seems kinda silly to me. I mean if I want to heal I'm in healing gear... or I'm out of mana anyways? So who cares if I sacrifice a tiny bit of healing viability in gear that I never heal in anyways?

Unless ALL of our abilities scale with spellpower it's going to be worse than if it was Stam -> AP. I guess I'm fine with that even if it isn't the "best" we could have.

Healing gear has stamina on it as well.

Also, if you're getting ~600 spellpower from your tanking gear, you can easily swap on a healing weapon, shield, and libram midfight and spam FoL without worrying too much about the mana cost. Hell, in full tanking gear right now I can keep constant FoL spams up for quite a while. Don't forget we're getting an ability that restores 50% of our mana as well.

At any rate, with the bonus to crit heals on it, it seems very clear that this is a hybrid-oriented talent. Changing to a Stam->AP conversion would not be in line with that.

[ulushnar]

I kinda agree, in Burning Crusade being a "hybrid" meant you could only really do one role well at any given time and changing that role meant respeccing and completely changing the gear.

I'm sure everyone remembers the pre-2.3 Ret itemization which was basically Warrior gear with some spelldamage squeezed in there. It didn't boost your hybrid ability much and most Ret Pallies ended up using Warrior gear.

With the change to healing spells and making giving the physical hybrid specs spellpower via talents rather than shoehorning it in via gear it puts us in a much better place to help out with offhealing where it's needed. My enhancement shaman mate's raving about the fact that the new talents will allow him to offheal in his dps gear, especially since enhancement shamans are being encouraged to use +int gear now.

Is it gonna make a massive difference to 25-mans? Probably not, but in ten-mans certainly, the talent really seems to offer us some flexibility.

[Dorvan]

The spellpower conversion gives some scaling to the abilities which are not AP-scaled.

-Splug

The key point though is that there is virtually nothing at this point that is SP scaled but not AP scaled. The only spells I'm aware of are Holy Shield and Ret Aura. HS has terrible scaling regardless, and Ret Aura will be coming from a Ret Pally usually, espcially since Tankadins will be running Imp Dev a lot.

It may seem 6 one way, half dozen the other, but I've seen all the ways unnecessary mechanics complications produce weird scaling effects down the lines, so I'd rather just cut it off altogether where it's not needed.

I also maintain that unless we see strong evidence of a shift in encounter design philosophy, off-DPS is a stronger role for tanks than off-healing, and we're significantly better at off-DPS in WotLK than we were in TBC.

[Aerien]

But the whole "healing in prot gear" argument seems kinda silly to me. I mean if I want to heal I'm in healing gear... or I'm out of mana anyways? So who cares if I sacrifice a tiny bit of healing viability in gear that I never heal in anyways?

Unless ALL of our abilities scale with spellpower it's going to be worse than if it was Stam -> AP. I guess I'm fine with that even if it isn't the "best" we could have.

Healing gear has stamina on it as well.

Also, if you're getting ~600 spellpower from your tanking gear, you can easily swap on a healing weapon, shield, and libram midfight and spam FoL without worrying too much about the mana cost. Hell, in full tanking gear right now I can keep constant FoL spams up for quite a while. Don't forget we're getting an ability that restores 50% of our mana as well.

At any rate, with the bonus to crit heals on it, it seems very clear that this is a hybrid-oriented talent. Changing to a Stam->AP conversion would not be in line with that.

I'd have to agree its use will probably help us out a ton while healing. Your tank heals won't make you /cry. And in healing gear its going to be noticeable aswell with our much bigger crit heals.

However, we'll probably be stuck in our tank group still with no regen. If Blizzard truly gave this talent to us to help out our healing, they'd couple this with some type of regen, especially with the new str/stam/def itemization they're throwing out. Divine plea is nice...no pots though (1 step forward, 1 step back). I won't complain though if I get a shaman/spriest/retnub in my group...only in dream.

[Nich]

However, we'll probably be stuck in our tank group still with no regen. If Blizzard truly gave this talent to us to help out our healing, they'd couple this with some type of regen, especially with the new str/stam/def itemization they're throwing out. Divine plea is nice...no pots though (1 step forward, 1 step back). I won't complain though if I get a shaman/spriest/retnub in my group...only in dream.

Vampiric Touch is now raid-wide. Mana Spring totems (and presumable mana tide? Maybe) Are also raid wide. Ret pallies will also be giving mana back to the raid, tho' I'm still waiting to see how the mechanics of player selection pan out.

I think people have forgotten this passive regen we'll end up seeing, when worrying about tanking things - but it's also going to be there for when we heal things, too.

[Aerien]

wow entirely forgot about that. never mind that then...i have no qualms at all with this talent! damn, i just realized that extra crit with my t6 4 set holy is going to be nasty big flash crits....damn too good

/hug nich for putting a smile on my face...3 good talent points ftw

[Dorvan]

wow entirely forgot about that. never mind that then...i have no qualms at all with this talent! damn, i just realized that extra crit with my t6 4 set holy is going to be nasty big flash crits....damn too good

/hug nich for putting a smile on my face...3 good talent points ftw

meh, I'm not excited about a talent to increase my offhealing ability and in the process introducing an otherwise unused stat into our mechanics...but I'll be mentioning my concern with Blizz once I get in Beta anyway I suppose.

[Sabindeus]

Vampiric Touch is now raid-wide.

no it isn't, that would be OP.

[Nich]

Vampiric Touch is now raid-wide.

no it isn't, that would be OP.

Woops, misinterpreted the scaleback to 2% while totems and auras were being made raid-wide.

[Forlorn]

As lore said when you are in prot or healing gear you will get a bigger amount of heal then the gear alone provides. The spell he mentions to restore mana is Divine Plea with is 50% of total mana returned after a 6 second channeling spell. its on a 5 min cool down.

Frankly I dont see what the big hubbub is about if you dont think the talent is for you, dont take it. I have used it on beta for a while now and frankly I find it pretty useful. From time to time you are called upon to heal, having bigger crits and more +heal isnt a bad thing.

Speaking as a guild master now, if I had a prot paladin that refused to heal or dps if asked or for that matter a prot warrior that refused to dps when asked/needed I wouldnt have a raid spot for them all that often. I apply that same rule to myself.

[Dorvan]

As lore said when you are in prot or healing gear you will get a bigger amount of heal then the gear alone provides. The spell he mentions to restore mana is Divine Plea with is 50% of total mana returned after a 6 second channeling spell. its on a 5 min cool down.

Frankly I dont see what the big hubbub is about if you dont think the talent is for you, dont take it. I have used it on beta for a while now and frankly I find it pretty useful. From time to time you are called upon to heal, having bigger crits and more +heal isnt a bad thing.

Speaking as a guild master now, if I had a prot paladin that refused to heal or dps if asked or for that matter a prot warrior that refused to dps when asked/needed I wouldnt have a raid spot for them all that often. I apply that same rule to myself.

My objection is more about having 2 stats which serve essentially the same purpose, but work in slightly different ways. It's a recipe for lots of bugs (small small, others more serious) with regards to itemizing and properly scaling tankadins.

As for the healing, there's a difference between maintaining a high quality healing set, ready and able to heal, and investing points deep in your primary tree for the main purpose of helping a seldom used off-role.

[roosevelt]

I'm worried that all these hybrid talents might be a hint that they're thinking about pulling the "two spec" idea or at least it could be a contingency plan for if they have to pull it.

I'm also worried that hybrids will be considered OP since it looks like we're getting closer to the infamous 31/31/31 spec. I'm fine helping heal on shade in kara but I would rather not have healing be part of our utility and a reason to bring us over warriors, because that would probably mean warriors would get to tank better than us.

[ulushnar]

I'm worried that all these hybrid talents might be a hint that they're thinking about pulling the "two spec" idea or at least it could be a contingency plan for if they have to pull it.

I don't think so. I think if they do implement the two spec idea it'll be on a long enough cooldown that you can only switch once per raid, and probably only once per day. So once you're locked into healer/tank/DPS mode for the remainder of the cooldown, then it'll be nice to have some versatility still.

Yes we can heal and DPS a little better now, but we'll never do it as well as a Holydin or Retadin respectively.

[jere]

My objection is more about having 2 stats which serve essentially the same purpose, but work in slightly different ways. It's a recipe for lots of bugs (small small, others more serious) with regards to itemizing and properly scaling tankadins.

As for the healing, there's a difference between maintaining a high quality healing set, ready and able to heal, and investing points deep in your primary tree for the main purpose of helping a seldom used off-role.

What bugs do you foresee with using both AP and SP? Considering the current model is a dual scaling model that mixes a discrete/non-linear scaling value with a continuous/linear scaling value, I do find dual continuous/linear scaling at least an improvement. I wouldn't say it is perfect, but I am honestly finding it difficult to come up with any scenarios that would be terrible with it. It is early morning though and I am still waking up.