PTR Build 13033 - 9/23/10

[Kihra]

Also, ewww, 20% more damage than we should be taking, gross.

I keep hearing that Sanctuary is broken, but that hasn't been my experience. I tanked some instances tonight in beta on both my druid and paladin and compared numbers, and the damage the paladin was taking seemed fine. My healer also indicated that she couldn't tell the difference between the two tanks.

Regarding dead GCDs: constantly putting up 1-HoPo Inquisitions feels really silly to me, and yet that's what I end up doing on AOE trash packs. Sure, it gives me fewer dead GCDs, but it just feels bizarre.

I think I would fix prot by taking a cue from some of the druid abilities.

(1) Make Crusader Strike have no CD and generate 1 HoPo still.
(2) Remove the HoPo generation from HotR and put it back on a 6 second CD. Unlink its CD from Crusader Strike's. Make it unattractive for single target by getting rid of the primary target component.
(3) Make SotR cost mana instead of HoPo and put it back on a 6 second CD.
(4) Have the two finishing moves for Holy Power be Inquisition and Word of Glory. They are exclusive. Using HoPo to heal consumes the Inquisition buff. Using HoPo to put up Inquisition consumes the Word of Glory overhealing shield.
(5) Only allow Grand Crusader procs and Sacred Duty procs when Inquisition is up.

In effect I am proposing that Crusader Strike is a little like Lacerate. Instead of stacking 3 debuffs on the mob though, you generate 3 HoPo for yourself.

Inquisition would be a bit like Pulverize, i.e., something you hit to maintain a +dmg buff. It could be tuned to assume 100% uptime.

The basic idea is that Crusader Strike is a weak-hitting spammable ability that you hit purely for HoPo generation to maintain Inquisition or to use your Word of Glory heal. It would be used in a single target rotation with Avenger's Shield, Judgement, Shield of the Righteous and Holy Wrath.

The AOE rotation would add in Consecration and Hammer of the Righteous, but you'd still have to spam Crusader Strike just enough to keep your Inquisition going, and you'd still have abilities like Shield of the Righteous free to build threat on a primary target.

Using Word of Glory could cost you a significant amount of threat if you kept using your HoPo on it, since you would have Inquisition downtime and would no longer get Sacred Duty procs or Grand Crusader procs.

Eternal Glory procs would now feel really fun, since you wouldn't consume Inquisition if you didn't spend Holy Power healing.

[Warsadin]

I've been thinking about picking up my bear druid more kihra. How did you like it compared to the paladin as far as playability?

[Kihra]

I've been thinking about picking up my bear druid more kihra. How did you like it compared to the paladin as far as playability?

It's difficult to compare the two right now. Druids are ridiculously OP at AOE tanking right now in beta. Swipe/Thrash hit way too hard. On AOE trash packs in 5-man normals where you can just hit everything, my druid pre-made out-DPSes the DPS. The end result is that tanking is super easy, since you just hit Swipe/Thrash when they come off CD and hold aggro.

On the paladin, threat is a bit more of a struggle, and I do about half the damage of the druid on trash packs.

Single target the two tanks are closer. The druid still does a bit more damage but they're not that far off.

I am a fan of the bear rotation though. Like the warrior rotation, it strikes the right balance between having some interesting things to maintain (the Pulverize buff, Mangle/Lacerate debuffs) and procs to watch for (Berserk/Clearcasting) without being so fussy that you can't pay attention to the playing field.

[Warsadin]

Yeah one thing which I'm hearing a lot of lately is that druids are quite a good class at the moment as far as feeling that they are finished. On top o that they are doing a lot of damage. Interesting stuff, interesting indeed.

[Kihra]

Yeah one thing which I'm hearing a lot of lately is that druids are quite a good class at the moment as far as feeling that they are finished. On top o that they are doing a lot of damage. Interesting stuff, interesting indeed.

Yeah, I'll be playing either my druid or paladin in Cataclysm. I'd like it to be my paladin, since I've invested a lot of time/energy into the character, but they need to make it fun!

[Pizbit]

It's difficult to compare the two right now. Druids are ridiculously OP at AOE tanking right now in beta. Swipe/Thrash hit way too hard. On AOE trash packs in 5-man normals where you can just hit everything, my druid pre-made out-DPSes the DPS. The end result is that tanking is super easy, since you just hit Swipe/Thrash when they come off CD and hold aggro.

On the paladin, threat is a bit more of a struggle, and I do about half the damage of the druid on trash packs.

Single target the two tanks are closer. The druid still does a bit more damage but they're not that far off.

I am a fan of the bear rotation though. Like the warrior rotation, it strikes the right balance between having some interesting things to maintain (the Pulverize buff, Mangle/Lacerate debuffs) and procs to watch for (Berserk/Clearcasting) without being so fussy that you can't pay attention to the playing field.

Yay this is the sort of information I've been looking for haha. Any ideas on how DKs/warriors are feeling? Although as it stands I'll probably go druid tanking, prot-paladin just looks messy.

[theckhd]

Or we could be balanced around keeping Inquisition up all the time and never having Holy Shield up, but by keeping HoPo in reserve we gain some extra mitigation at the cost of threat. It's all arbitrary.

...

This is all essentially equivalent, what I don't get is why advocate one specific implementation of the model over the other.

If you balance tank threat and mitigation around keeping HS up, then when we switch "stances" to Inquisition we just have a DPS advantage, which is useful for off-tanking and burn phases, but not unbalancing. If you balance mitigation and threat around the Inquisition "stance," then we have a noticeable mitigation advantage over the other tanks. I think that most raid leaders would agree that for progression content, that sort of mitigation advantage would be overpowered.

I guess you could call it arbitrary in the sense that Blizzard could do it either way, but one way makes a good deal more sense than the other from a design standpoint, so the two options aren't as equivalent as "arbitrary" makes them sound.

[Magnusharkov]

Method 2: HoPo on Judgement through talents - Judgement's another staple of our rotation, and it's also on a fixed cooldown, so this doesn't give us a variable Holy Power generation rate. It does, however, speed up our rotation a bit:

CS-J-X-CS-ShoR-X-CS-J-X-CS-ShoR-X.

This actually solves a lot of problems.

Pros:

• No empty GCDs, because AS/Cons/HW can fill all of the gaps.
• Faster HP means more ShoRs (makes the rotation feel less slow), quicker ramp-up times
• Guarantees 1 J before every CS for Sacred Duty procs
• Because ShoR is cast more often, it doesn't have to be as large - this allows damage to be shifted to other abilities to make our rotation less lopsided, and also increases the likelihood that we'll want to push everything back for AS (because it may hit harder, relatively, than ShoR).
• Gives the rotation a very rhythmic feel (1-2-3-1-4-3-1-2-3-1-4-3) while still preserving the variability with GC procs

Cons:

• Inquisition interaction is now an issue. That can be solved by replacing Inq with an AoE finisher for prot or by turning ShoR into physical damage. Personally, I'd rather see Inq replaced with Divine Storm for us.

This may be a bump but I just wanted to add that this seems like a very, very good way of making the rotation much better. Plus all it requires is adding a holy power on judgement effect to something like sacred duty while adapting Shor to not benefit from inquisition. You could even add a *removes inquisition flag to ShoR or just make it physical and rebalance the numbers

[Sabindeus]

If you balance mitigation and threat around the Inquisition "stance," then we have a noticeable mitigation advantage over the other tanks. I think that most raid leaders would agree that for progression content, that sort of mitigation advantage would be overpowered.

Unless threat balance is such that losing Inquisition makes us unable to maintain aggro, and throttling DPS is a worse option than having better tank mitigation because burning down every boss as fast as possible before your healers go OOM matters.

[theckhd]

If you balance mitigation and threat around the Inquisition "stance," then we have a noticeable mitigation advantage over the other tanks. I think that most raid leaders would agree that for progression content, that sort of mitigation advantage would be overpowered.

Unless threat balance is such that losing Inquisition makes us unable to maintain aggro, and throttling DPS is a worse option than having better tank mitigation because burning down every boss as fast as possible before your healers go OOM matters.

But there are already tools to prop up threat, at least for short periods of time. If there's a big damage burst phase that the tank must survive, there's absolutely no way you can argue that the tank with identical baseline mitigation and cooldowns that also has the option to turn into Voltron and get 15% block on top of those mitigation cooldowns doesn't have an advantage. Though maybe less of an advantage in the Cataclysm model of damage intake than in the Wrath model.

In a steady-state where we have to maintain Inquisition to hold aggro you might be able to discount that difference and say that it doesn't matter which way you balance it. But it's very clear that the short-term extremes of the two balancing schemes are very different, and one (being able to go into super-mitigation mode) is arguably (I guess, since we are) far more powerful for a tank than the other (having a high-threat mode).

[theckhd]

Also, It is done.

[Klaudandus]

Also, It is done.

Theck, thanks!

[Flex]

If there's complaint about the ramp up time to ShoR for single targets how does a ramp up time on an AoE finisher make sense?

[Magnusharkov]

Also, It is done.

Great read, I hope it gets the attention it deserves.

[Sabindeus]

If you balance mitigation and threat around the Inquisition "stance," then we have a noticeable mitigation advantage over the other tanks. I think that most raid leaders would agree that for progression content, that sort of mitigation advantage would be overpowered.

Unless threat balance is such that losing Inquisition makes us unable to maintain aggro, and throttling DPS is a worse option than having better tank mitigation because burning down every boss as fast as possible before your healers go OOM matters.

But there are already tools to prop up threat, at least for short periods of time. If there's a big damage burst phase that the tank must survive, there's absolutely no way you can argue that the tank with identical baseline mitigation and cooldowns that also has the option to turn into Voltron and get 15% block on top of those mitigation cooldowns doesn't have an advantage. Though maybe less of an advantage in the Cataclysm model of damage intake than in the Wrath model.

If you're talking about Tricks and MD, those are now expiring threat, so if your DPS are riding you already, then you have to drop your TPS output to boost your defenses, but you get some Tricks/MD to cover it, you'll just lose aggro as soon as they expire.

Of course if you already have a solid threat lead, then none of this matters anyway.

In a steady-state where we have to maintain Inquisition to hold aggro you might be able to discount that difference and say that it doesn't matter which way you balance it. But it's very clear that the short-term extremes of the two balancing schemes are very different, and one (being able to go into super-mitigation mode) is arguably (I guess, since we are) far more powerful for a tank than the other (having a high-threat mode).

Really what I am seeing is a choice no different from the one we already have to make on Beta with SHotR vs WoG, and am trying to understand how this proposal would be different. I was pointing out the balance line because it seemed just as arbitrary to me as having to choose between ShotR and WoG. I guess the question to be asked on that topic is, is Blizzard trying to balance us around hitting ShotR every 3 HoPo or WoG every 3 HoPo?

Also

also has the option to turn into Voltron

This made me rofl.