Impact of HP generation nerf on gearing

[Arincia]

Well dropped my exp and hit back down to almost where they were before and in raids and heroics it felt almost the same (only 18% exp and .5% hit just 4 pieces reforged neck/weapon/relic/shield + racial). And honestly its not a issue. Just have dps watch themselves the first 30 seconds on threat and once vengeance is up its a none issue. With SoT glyph we only have a 25% miss chance or 5% chance to miss 2 in a row. If you held threat fine before this patch then its fine after as the only change is that your now delaying your finisher. If you primarily used WoG before then your rotation is the same static one as before just more variance in HP used. (linear scaling so its all good). Just have to plan out HP slightly more ahead time now due to possible misses but that's it.

[theckhd]

I solo-tanked Baradin Hold last night with the same setup I've been using for all of 4.0.3a (WoG build, SoI/WoG/HotR glyphs, 1% hit and 3 expertise) and threat didn't feel any different. As the MATLAB model predicted, the buffs to CS and seals seem to have offset the HP-related losses. I was still far ahead of the top DPS (as a nice change of pace, it was 2 of our Ret Paladins pulling 19k each edging out our Rogue and Mage).

Last night I just opted to not break rotation, and just live with whatever holy power I have. So if ShoR is up in the rotation, and I only have 2 holy power, so be it.

I'm waiting on the theory craft that says it's better to bork your rotation and miss a GCD in order to get a 2 HP ShoR than it is to use a 1 or 2 HP ShoR. Once I'm in WoG'ing mode, I can safely bork my rotation and wait for 3 HP.

Another thing I stopped doing is DP + Inquisition on the pull. I now definitely DP + ShoR early on just so I can be sure to get one decent attack off in the first 12 seconds.

Neither of these are likely to be good decisions. A 2-HoPo SotR is pretty weak in the grand scheme of things, and even with low hit/exp there's still enough fillers to cover most of the empty GCDs that missed Crusader Strikes create. Grand Crusader procs are much more easily utilized now too as a result. I'll sim it out, but so far the MATLAB results (see my thread in AT&C) suggest that the 939 queue is still tops. It's just no longer a 9-second cycle.

As far as the pull, I suspect that this change will only make DP+Inq stronger. SotR without a Sacred Duty proc is pretty weak, whereas Inq buffs AS, J, and seal procs (which now stack more quickly to boot). Inq gives you a lot of reliable damage, in that AS and J aren't affected by expertise.

[Digren]

Last night in a heroic my only change from my pre-4.0.6 setup was to use Seal of Truth instead of Seal of Insight. My mana bar didn't sit at 100% all the time, but otherwise I didn't feel any different.

In my opinion any regearing for this change is unwarranted. Unfortunately, I think many, many, people were looking for and will take this as an excuse to throw away the mathematical models and rely on bad gut instinct. (Sigh.)

[Ardrhyst]

I've actually spent this entire expansion cutting out all threat stats, to the point of after trading the Triton Legplates (which have Expertise) for the tier legs after my Tuesday raid this week, I am down to 0% hit and just the 10 expertise from the Seal of Truth glyph. On Wednesday we did half of Bastion of Twilight and the Conclave of Wind, and I don't think things seemed that much different from how they did before the patch. The first 30 seconds of the fight were a bit dicey at times, but after that there was nobody near my threat levels. Same as before. Once I've got a sizable threat lead, I switch to Seal of Insight and start using Word of Glory, and people still don't begin to creep up on my threat levels.

I don't think that I'll be switching to more threat stats anytime soon.

In heroics I definitely notice the nerf, simply because in my full raid gear I simply don't take enough damage anymore. That's going to require some gear switches, but I was prepared for that, because that was almost the inevitable result of gearing up. The holy power nerf just jumps up the timetable.

[econ21]

In heroics I definitely notice the nerf, simply because in my full raid gear I simply don't take enough damage anymore.

Sorry, you lost me - why do you want to take damage? We don't benefit from damage as we used to from mana via spiritual attunement or as warriors do from rage like mechanics, do we? (This is a genuine question, not rhetorical.)

If anything, I thought we get mana from blocking hits - in which case, full raid gear should help in heroics: higher block, more mana?

[Ardrhyst]

In heroics I definitely notice the nerf, simply because in my full raid gear I simply don't take enough damage anymore.

Sorry, you lost me - why do you want to take damage? We don't benefit from damage as we used to from mana via spiritual attunement or as warriors do from rage like mechanics, do we? (This is a genuine question, not rhetorical.)

If anything, I thought we get mana from blocking hits - in which case, full raid gear should help in heroics: higher block, more mana?

It's not a mana issue, it's a vengeance issue. In heroics my vengeance stacks are tiny because I take relatively tiny amounts of damage compared to how much I used to take when I was in entry-level heroic gear.

[inthedrops]

Thanks Theck. I'll continue playing around. We raid again tonight so I'll get more time in. I have never used the Grand Crusader spec, I might pick that up tonight and give it a try for a change.

[exiledknight]

Neither of these are likely to be good decisions. A 2-HoPo SotR is pretty weak in the grand scheme of things, and even with low hit/exp there's still enough fillers to cover most of the empty GCDs that missed Crusader Strikes create. Grand Crusader procs are much more easily utilized now too as a result. I'll sim it out, but so far the MATLAB results (see my thread in AT&C) suggest that the 939 queue is still tops. It's just no longer a 9-second cycle.

As far as the pull, I suspect that this change will only make DP+Inq stronger. SotR without a Sacred Duty proc is pretty weak, whereas Inq buffs AS, J, and seal procs (which now stack more quickly to boot). Inq gives you a lot of reliable damage, in that AS and J aren't affected by expertise.

I stuck to the rotation and other than a few strings of 5-6 misses/parry on CS HP generation didnt seem to be a massive deal while tanking bosses last night. It also felt as if my initial threat was higher than normal as our Fury warrior never had to call for a salv the first 10-15 seconds like he normally does. I was using DP/Inq on the pull. I was spec'd 1/2 GC but will most likely go 2/2 due to actually being able to use a lot more of the procs.

[Arincia]

If your mostly raid geared then taking damage in heroics is fine just use less CC and pull faster between pacts of trash in a guild run. 2-3k ap from vengeance easily smooths out any initial problems for threat in heroics.

[Killian]

After receiving some healer complaints about my randomly slung-together panic set during Ascendant Council, I took a break halfway through to go back and double down on the conventional wisdom. I Rawr'd together a soft-Exp-capped-with-GoSoT CTC set, flagged everything in it as being offlimits for rejiggering, and figured out what I'd have to swap in in order to reach the hit cap (Reaching the hard Expertise cap, for me at least, seems to essentially require replacing everything with Retribution gear.) I had to sacrifice about 30k HP to make these changes, and ended up with a (self-buffed, with +90 dodge food) Exp-soft-capped 148K/85% set and a hit-and-Exp-soft-capped 146K/77% set. I was on Rebuke duty for Ignacious, so when I came back, I went with the Hit set.




And now we're 9/12! Al'Akir, here we come!

(I had to make some manual tweaks to a couple items that Rawr didn't have or hadn't updated, and the downloadable version of the program wouldn't let me configure my own gemming templates, but overall I feel like Rawr is useable again and it makes me super happy.)

EDIT: To clarify, since in hindsight I didn't actually make the point I was trying to, I did not feel overly squishy when in my Hit set and did not suffer much for HP generation when I was in my merely-Expertise softcap gear later on Al'Akir. I didn't need to go for Expertise at all before the patch, but making that minimum requirement on my normal set did not take a huge amount of effort.

[Dilvish]

I've swapped to a sword instead of an axe (they were pretty close anyway...might as well get the racial). Otherwise kept things the same as before. We are a very casual raid guild with only 3 bosses down so far so I don't think it will be much of an issue with us.

[Solare]

Last night I just opted to not break rotation, and just live with whatever holy power I have. So if ShoR is up in the rotation, and I only have 2 holy power, so be it.

I'm waiting on the theory craft that says it's better to bork your rotation and miss a GCD in order to get a 2 HP ShoR than it is to use a 1 or 2 HP ShoR. Once I'm in WoG'ing mode, I can safely bork my rotation and wait for 3 HP.

Another thing I stopped doing is DP + Inquisition on the pull. I now definitely DP + ShoR early on just so I can be sure to get one decent attack off in the first 12 seconds.

So thanks for starting this thread, I'm anxious to see what the appropriate thing to do now is.

This might make me a bad tank, but I don't even put Inquisition on my tanking bars. I tried using it and keeping it up for aoe pulls late Wrath after the content patch, but it just never seemed to be worth it. And with dps back then pulling numbers they're doing right now (full 277 fire mages were doing 15k single target. FML) it just seemed like a waste of time. Better to smack them twice with ShoR then once with ShoR+30%.

Little has changed (besides getting far more comfortable with the hp system) and I still don't think it'd be worth my time or hp to use Inquisition when I can just ShoR something, or heck, WoG myself. Prot just doesn't have enough reason without the extended time talent that ret has, to make much use of Inquisition.

Has anyone found a reverse experience? Some pulls or fights where it's advisable to use Inquisition?

[Dantriges]

I am not even sure capping expertise and getting a bit more hit would do much impact on survivability unless you panic.

[Extermi]

I feel satisfied after my raid night with a hit/exp softcap set. For the boss fights where some tank HP could be beneficial I swapped in the +STA trinket in place of the +HIT one, leaving me at ~6% hit. Threat was a no-issue and also survivability was as good as it ever was (my feral tank partner was complaining much louder about the patch). Being able to interrupt, finally, is a godsend.

A change I was also doing was to replace my ShoR glyph with the CS one. The reason is that at least for me and my raid yesterday, recount shows that CS is doing roughly double the damage than ShoR, so a 5% increase to crit/~damage is similar to the effect of the other glyph on average, plus I do get better threat in those fights where most of my HoPo goes to WoG.

This patch, as a whole, definitely did impriove my tanking experience and fun.

Extermi

[Throb]

This might make me a bad tank, but I don't even put Inquisition on my tanking bars. I tried using it and keeping it up for aoe pulls late Wrath after the content patch, but it just never seemed to be worth it. And with dps back then pulling numbers they're doing right now (full 277 fire mages were doing 15k single target. FML) it just seemed like a waste of time. Better to smack them twice with ShoR then once with ShoR+30%.

Little has changed (besides getting far more comfortable with the hp system) and I still don't think it'd be worth my time or hp to use Inquisition when I can just ShoR something, or heck, WoG myself. Prot just doesn't have enough reason without the extended time talent that ret has, to make much use of Inquisition.

Has anyone found a reverse experience? Some pulls or fights where it's advisable to use Inquisition?

I started using it quite a bit on decent sized AoE trash pulls where I don't have any reason to go nuts on a single target (probably 4+ targets). It causes me to do more damage overall. Additionally, I use it on Maloriak during the dark phase and during the green phase for the same reason. Lots of targets and no need for high threat on any individual target. I say get it on your bars and try mixing it in on some larger heroic dungeon packs or some raid trash packs (like those Phase Twisters at the start of BoT).