The new patch drops today, and to help along with getting ready for the new content coming out tonight, here are a few things I wrote over at WoW Insider about 4.2:
Make sure to put the new Holy Shield on your bars tonight, as well as swap out any Agility gear and get the new leg armor. Good luck in Firelands if you head in there tonight!
I don’t get it, I just don’t get it.
I’ve been spending much more time than I care to admit dredging through the fetid swamp that is this thread on the official tanking forums. The discussion is about the Holy Shield change and whether it’s a buff or a nerf — the primary source of disagreement in the tankadin community for the better part of three weeks.
I’m seeing the same arguments there that have been regurgitated elsewhere over the duration of this whole sturm und drang, and they’re just as uncompelling as they were the first time someone first spit them up.
This is the most beguiling complaint of all. I’m trying to decide if the sentiment is “I’m incapable of juggling all these cooldowns” or “I’m too lazy to try”. There’s no such thing as too many cooldowns (er, outside of the point where you break the game) and the more opportunities you have to boost survivability, at the tips of your fingers, the more powerful you will be.
I don’t understand this sentiment of being handed a cooldown and turning it away. It feels like someone not wearing a second trinket because they can’t be bothered to click the On Use ability.
Partly true, but not how they think.
I made a point similar to this (but not exactly this sentiment, which is wrong) in my WI column on Friday and was attacked by my Very Special Troll that I had somehow contradicted myself. I don’t think sentences with more than one clauses must exist in his world, because what I meant was “it’s a slight nerf to TDR, but the buff to survivability vastly compensates for it.”
The fact of the matter is that having 10% less block value in non-threatening periods (because we’ll be using Holy Shield in the more threatening periods) of damage will hardly be noticeable. Overhealing, which can run to absurd percents in raid content, will easily cover up most of that extra damage intake. Meanwhile, you’ll be gaining a huge boost to your mitigation but blocking more of those really dangerous physical hits.
So false. What OOMs healers more than anything is getting tanks back up to full after eating a huge spike. Not spamming their most efficient heals during more stable points of the fight. The 10% loss of block value will still keep us healable through those efficient spells, while we’ll have Holy Shield to cut even more damage off the spikes, making us require less dire healing to bring us back to a safer level. Used correct, the new HS is a boon to healer mana.
I feel like XT-002 a bit: No, no, no, no, no. Bad idea!
The value in this change is that it gives you control over when to deploy and allows you to mitigate those moments that are most dangerous to us. If you macro it to CS, you’ll likely blow it when you need it the least. You might end up mitigating more of that less dangerous damage, great, but you’ll still going to die during Flame Orders or when Nefarian casts Electrocute, because you automatically used the cooldown 15 seconds ago.
It’s not “sticking it to the man” by screwing your raid or group with lazy play. The only ones who suffer are your comrades and your repair bill.
Ultimately, I just don’t get the furor this change has raised. This crowd is reduced to raging like a pack of wild monkeys in front of a shiny black monolith. Except in this case, I highly doubt any positive change or enlightenment will come from the contact.
My demand of Antigen was simple, teach me to be like you.
When he was finished squealing at the prospect of cramming my tiny head with everything he knew about Ret Paladins and molding me into some kind of dazzling killing machine, he composed himself, straightened his hair, and emphasized the gravity of what he was going to bestow upon me. It was going to be a long road, full of split-ends and broken hearts.
We trained for many hours as he helped me tweak my gear to properly balance hit and expertise (“Reforge this to hit… no wait, expertise… no, hit!”), taught me the most important part of dps (“Always be jumping!”), and rounded out the whole process with a classic 80s training montage (Montage!).
But the end of our journey, I finally managed to snatch the canister of pomade from his hand. The student was ready to walk his own path.
As a sidenote, may I comment, for a brief second, the cruelty of finally having a gap closer — but only in an offspec? It’s like being allowed to hold the Holy Grail — to feel its smooth contours, to partake in eternal life from it — but you can’t take it with you. If you want to keep it forever you need to trap yourself behind the seal, for eternity. A fate worse than death. Perfectly akin to being a mainspec Ret Paladin.
Go on and read ahead. I’m going to linger here and spend a few more moment with that translucent streak of furious speed.
But I digress. I carried Antigen’s lessons to raids this week when I stepped aside from the main tanking position on some one or two-tank fights to allow the other two tanks to do something other than dps while I have all the fun. I followed Antigen’s advice to a T, forgoing Inquisition as much as possible, and making good use out of hardcasting Exorcism.
And that’s the story of how I barely broke 20k damage on Magmaw.
Fear my hybrid usefulness.
Credit for this picture goes to the fantastic Rades, who spotted an interesting difference in argumentation technique on Wednesday following the tanking Q&A answers were revealed.
In one corner, Linedan and Lara were discussing Vengeance and how the Q&A didn’t properly address concerns people had over it. In the other, Vosskah and I were engaging in one of our usual tiffs over some inanity. Which, of course, quickly drifted in one of our usual Blood Elf vs Draenei throwdowns.
Still, I think I had the best burn.
But I digress!
I printed up a copy of Rades’ masterwork above and have it hanging in my office at home. Favorite detail: me pulling Voss’ chintacles, him pulling my hair. And therein Voss makes his most deadly mistake yet.
No one messes with the ‘do.
Practice.
If last week was all about my non-raiding goals, perhaps my biggest (and most inane) raiding goal is perfect handling of the adds on Nefarian. This entails getting them into as tight a pile as I can in phase 1, for starters.
I feel like I’ve done tighter than this, but, no matter. The real payoff came in phase 3 later that attempt when Lofaz and I were dragging adds around the chamber and they all reset at the same time well out of fire.
“You should probably get a screenshot of this,” Lofaz suggested.
So for the next fifteen seconds we just kind of stood there, twiddling our thumbs, tossing a few ranged spells at Nef.
Of course, the fun began again soon enough.
Really. Was there one substantive/possibly game-changing answer from the whole thing? I guess it was nice to learn that a tanking legendary isn’t off the table, but we would likely not see it for at least two more patches. Likewise, the devs called a truce in the Battle of Blockcap. For that I thank them, if only because they realized they didn’t have enough time to properly gut our mastery and deal with the consequences appropriately on the PTR.
So, here are the interesting and important questions/answers.
Q: What are your intentions with each tank’s mastery and mastery in general?
A: Paladins: Mastery is an attractive stat for paladins, but has some design problems. It scales very well, but due to the nature of our combat tables (and being able to “fill them up”), you can get “block capped,” which is a massive performance benefit. Worse, Protection mastery scales with itself, since there are no diminishing returns on block chance, and the amount of rating you need to block cap goes down as your dodge and parry improve, allowing you to put even more of your stats into dodge or parry. This sort of feedback loop is something we always try to stay away from, so we plan to change this in the future. We tried several alternatives for 4.2, but weren’t happy with the results. Any change which made mastery weaker (such as subjecting block to diminishing returns or changing what it does) would have required mitigation compensation for paladins elsewhere (with all the design risks inherent in making such changes), as well as asking many players to extensively re-gem or re-forge. We’ll ask players to do that when the need is great, but we didn’t think this problem crossed that line. The major risks are that Protection paladins become too powerful or too weak or that gear with mastery will at some point be rejected once characters are over the cap. We don’t think any of those problems will manifest themselves in the 4.2 content.
This is somewhat of a relief. I was really hoping they’d let us blockcap in peace in 4.2 and it seems like we’ll have that luxury. I think it’s also safe to say, at this juncture, that the latest Holy Shield change is likely to be the version that’ll end up on live servers in a few weeks. A relief all-around… for now.
Hopefully when Blizzard finds the time to nerf our mastery they don’t overdo it.
Q: Will we see a tanking Legendary sometime soon?
A: The tanking community both loves and hates when this question comes up, but it received a lot of votes, so we’ll answer it. The answer is not soon, but probably eventually. The problem with tanking legendaries, of course, is that the shield-users and non-shield-users tank with different weapons. That’s not a deal breaker, but it is a consideration. We could allow the legendary to be transformed from a one-hander to two-hander or we could just design an item for a more narrow audience (such as a shield). The 4.2 legendary has fairly wide appeal, and the 4.3 legendary will have much more narrow appeal. We don’t want to fall into the trap of making legendaries too formulaic.
I feel really guilty admitting this, because the conventional wisdom is that putting a legendary in the hands of such a central role — like the tank — raises tuning issues for content and so on and so forth. But, I just don’t care. This is one of those times when every intelligent impulse is dulled and all I can hear is the siren song of orange text held within my greedy hands. Like I tweeted:
Yes.
Q:Are there any plans to update the leg armor in 4.2 now that the plate tanks receive no dodge from agility? Maybe introduce a new leg armor patch that adds str/stamina, or a mastery/stamina?
A: We did. As you’ve probably seen by now, it’s called Drakehide Leg Armor, and it provides Stamina and dodge rating.
Q: Can you make it so that taunt doesn’t miss, just like you did for interrupt abilities? Doesn’t feel as though it would be a complete upset to overall balance.
A: Yes, absolutely! And in fact we did it back in patch 3.9. Tank classes’ taunts have been unable to miss since then. We recognize that tanks will nearly always choose mitigation stats over threat stats and it’s particularly frustrating to have to reach a hit cap just to make sure taunts or interrupts don’t miss, which is why we no longer require that.
Really?! These questions were answered? And people voted them up on the forums? I sincerely hope this didn’t take the place of two far more worthy inquiries. Though, I guess the next runner up to be answered was about shaman tanking. The devs shouldn’t stoop to waste their limited space on questions that could be answered by watching mmo-champ’s front page.
Q: Do you plan to bring other tanks to the same level as Death Knights who have a lot of advantages over other tanking classes (easier to heal, quite a number of various safe abilities, etc.)?
A: Death knights are a somewhat different style of tank compared to the others. They take significantly more damage than other tanks, but then heal/shield that extra damage back instead (and sometimes more). Due to taking more damage, and that damage coming in spikes, they’re also the most likely to die to unexpected burst (such as when they don’t have runes up to Death Strike, have no cooldowns available, and fail to dodge or parry a few attacks in a row. They also have more personal impact on their own survivability and mitigation than any other tank, by tying much of their performance to Death Strike (and especially optimally timing their Death Strikes). So in the hands of a really skilled player, they can do some amazing things, but not usually much better than the other tanks. We’d actually like to head more in that direction with the other tanks (making them tie more of their defensive performance to their ability usage), in the future.
No kidding, Death Knights can do amazing things in the hands of a skilled player because they have more control over their own survivability via active abilities? Sounds a little bit like the reasoning that the new Holy Shield is a buff, eh? Eh?!
This is the conclusion to my theme this week of my “three non-raiding goals”.
Gather ’round, friends, for my tale of woe. Unlike the last two posts, this is not a goal achieved. No, this is a dream deferred … for far too long!
For years now I’ve been attempting to put together a Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker. Well, almost two years, so nearly plural. Searching back in my blog history, the first mention I can find of Thunderfury was having already had the first binding by late November, 2009. If memory serves, I actually got that on either my first or second trip into Molten Core for a bindings run. My immediate thought was, “oh fantastic, this will be done in no time.”
Apparently that’s the WoW equivalent of killing an albatross, because here I am 19 months — or, 82 lockouts — later with still only one binding to show for it.
For the past year and seven months (with a three month gap after Cata launched) I’ve been religiously hauling myself down to the Core — all the easier this past year thanks to Direbrew’s Remote — to take my weekly crack at Garr and his binding. And for the past 70+ times I’ve done it, I’ve tasted the bitter sting of disappointment.
Hell, I’ve done that run so many times I could probably do it with my eyes closed. In the front door, turn left, along the right wall avoiding the giants, hop down the ledge catching the lip of the edge below. Run along that and jump down to the right, descending towards Garr. Go straight, avoiding Ragers but probably being forced to kill the Corehounds. Don’t loot them. Continue down and weave between giants. Once in Garr’s “room”, break right and pull him along with any immediately nearby Corehounds and put your back to the wall. Hammer of the Righteous, Inquisition, Consecration, etc., etc. Open loot window, sigh with infinite disconnect, hearth back to Org to sell the lvl 60 purples.
You know, the usual.
My nemesis during this whole process has been Nordicslayer, who is currently working on his own private version of The Ultimate Collection. He received the opposite binding I needed before I got my first, and so we started running MC together for a few months since we each needed a different one. Then one week I couldn’t make it, he went with someone else, and the binding I wanted dropped. Shortly thereafter he got his second binding as well and he went on to construct his legendary.
Since then he’s farmed up both glaives on our guild drunk BT runs, was the designated first Shadowmourne recipient in ICC, and last weekend won the Thori’dal bow in a drunk Sunwell run by virtue of the being the only person in raid who could equip it. We hates him, Precious. Oh yes.
I’ll continue farming Garr, because I have no choice. Perhaps one day the binding I need will drop, and I can finally make use of the 10 Enchanted Elementium Bars and the Essence of the Firelord, finally summon Thunderaan, and finally send him back to the void. After almost two years, it’s bound to happen eventually. That’s how random chance works, right?
… Right?
This post continues on my theme this week of my “three non-raiding goals”.
I honestly can’t remember the first time I ever bubblehearthed. I think at some point in Outland, to avoid a massive ganksquad of Allies. I can’t say with certainty though. I can tell you though that the last time I bubblehearthed was during the last raid night before 4.0. We were working on Neck Deep in Vile and were slogging through was likely to be the last attempt of the night. Things went south and with minutes to go before raid end struck, I hastily announced, “that’s raid!” and bubblehearthed to cackle in safety/seclusion as Grid announced the trickling demise of each of my comrades. For old time’s sake, of course.
I was remiss when Cataclysm reduced the duration of Divine Shield and thus effectively murdered in a back alley a combo that’s been port of the lore of the Paladin class since Vanilla. Hell, poems were written about bubblehearthing. And it was gone, just like that!
However, all hope is not lost. As many pointed out when Archaeology first debuted, the Draenei artifact, The Last Relic of Argus, can be used as an impromptu hearthstone. With a five second cast, putting it well within the duration of Divine Shield. Which, as you can guess, makes our beloved bubblehearth possible once more.
I finally got around to digging it up last night, after lagging in my leveling of the Archaeology profession for months. With the Last Relic finally grasped between my greedy paws — like Donovan with the Holy Grail — I fired it up for a test drive and it sent me deep into the heart of Stranglethorn. Even while being sent randomly across the world(s), it felt like coming home!
For a change this week I’m going to do my three posts over the next few days following a theme. Specifically, my three non-raiding goals! Though, that’s not a 100% accurate title, as one of them requires a raid to get, another I’m getting for the purpose of raiding — regardless, they don’t involve going into the tier 11 raids to achieve.
In any case, today’s goal involves one of my least favorite activities in WoW: dailies.
For the past three weeks I’ve been sporadically grinding Tol Barad dailies to accumulate enough marks to buy the Unsolvable Riddle trinket for my Mastery set. I even continued on this journey after it was announced last week that Blizzard was knee-capping Agility for plate tanks. Unsolvable Riddle now replaces my previous second Mastery trinket, the Impetuous Query, with a gain of .87% block chance. The proc works out to a little over 4% dodge after diminishing returns, as well, though obviously not as powerful as IQ’s clicky (though much more powerful than the Strength-equivalent Impatience of Youth with 1.75% parry chance from that trinket’s clicky).
Still, I’m looking for gobs of Mastery for my block-capping set, so this will hopefully help that along. I’m already block-capped against Nef adds, and the next step is that huge leap of 2.4% against raid boss level mobs.
It might seem dumb in hindsight to have gone to the trouble to continue to go for this trinket after it was effectively given a death sentence, but my thinking is that 4.2 is still a month away at least. And I was already at around 80 marks when the nerf to agility was announced. What else was I going to spend the marks on, a mount? A resounding “Meh” to that.
I’m a stubborn man, and I hate the idea of spending all that time in the hell that is Tol Barad for nothing. So I’ve purchased the trinket regardless of timelines and I’ll allow it to live the remainder of its life to the fullest; helping the little guy tick things off its bucket list, while I ride that sweet, sweet mastery train while I can.
Of course, with my luck now, the patch will be next week.
Tomorrow: goal number two.
Anyone else feeling this way right now? Feels a bit like we’re in one of those fun little doldrums periods, merrily meandering along, without any idea what the destination is in the short-term. Sure, Firelands is coming out — but probably not for at least another month. Maybe two. So we’ll continue sticking our various appendages in the electrical outlets that compose hardmode fights, for the foreseeable future.
But, more specifically, I’m referring to our beloved prot spec. The changes to Mastery, hiding just over the horizon like a fleet of Greeks, have some major ramifications for our gearing — perhaps even our survivability if Blizzard screws it up — and yet we have no clue what we’re going to do.
With the reversion (and mysterious reappearance?) of the Holy Shield change, there’s nothing remotely tangible to attempt to shake a nugget of truth out of. It could go one of many ways.
Maybe the Dev Q&A for tanks will give us a hint or two when it’s put up next week, but I’m not holding my breath. Most answers in those tend to be generalizations and non-committals. Nearly akin to Blizzard getting on the stand and pleading the fifth for a span of twelve questions.
And that the PTR refuses to surrender its secrets with any further prot changes only belies the mystery. Though, I guess I can’t blame them after the three ring circus that was pitched following the initial report of a Holy Shield change. I’d be holding my cards pretty tightly after an episode like that, too.
Anyway, suffice it to say, I want some news dammit!
Update!
New PTR notes out this afternoon have the following:
Holy Shield has been redesigned. This talent is now an activated ability off the global cooldown. It grants 20% increased block amount to a paladin’s shield blocks for 10 seconds, with a 30-second cooldown.
Exclusively by 