A shot in the arm for WoG, and build 13066
There was a very interesting (and informative) Ghostcrawler post this weekend that gave some some great news about Word of Glory, as well as some insight into our tanking situation.
Word of Glory now scales with either attack power or spell power, whichever is higher. The net result is that Ret and Prot Word of Glory will heal for at least 50% more than they did before. That was why we had to nerf Selfless Healer. If I am remembering correctly, a level 85 Ret or Prot paladin 3 Holy Power WoG went from around 6000 to around 9000 (before Selfless Healer or Guarded by the Light). You should test it yourself though, since I may be misremembering.
One poster on Maintankadin reports Word of Glory healing him for 25k (out of a total of health bar of almost 100k hp) multiple times while Vengeance capped. Hearing these numbers just about evaporates many concerns I have about WoG. Indeed, with a heal of that value (25%!) then the ability definitely becomes a “meaningful choice”, contra the threat of ShoR.
If you need the threat, you shield slam. Otherwise you can toss a major heal on yourself. Much better choice now.
In other news, not only is Sanctuary broken, but so is our avoidance.
As far as tank balance goes, in beta we found that DKs and Feral druids were taking less damage than paladins and warriors. This is partially because of the Sanctuary bug (where it just wasn’t working). Beyond that, the avoidance of the former were just a lot higher. Druids get dodge and DKs get parry just from wearing Agi and Str respectively. Block tanks used to get a little mitigation from Strength, but it was never much, and that won’t really work any longer with the new model. Solutions include letting Str affect parry (for everyone in the same way Agi provides dodge) or giving all plate users some kind of Forceful Deflection passive or talent.
Part and parcel is this declaration:
Basically, we think that avoidance below 20% or so doesn’t feel very good because you don’t see it, and avoidance above around 70% or so breaks encounters and forces us to add “radiance” debuffs to raids.
It’s interesting, and welcome, to get hard numbers like that. I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with.
Build 13066 also was datamined this weekend, and looking at the change there’s nothing particularly amazing. The biggest change I saw was Seals of the Pure going to 2/2 points, and Vindication going to 1/1, each shedding one point to cap. Which frees up three points for us. I think it’s safe to say they intend to trick us into putting those points into Guarded by the Light. Though, in light of the WoG change, I will gladly do that.
I’m currently looking into a spec like this, with those last points (plus the one in Hallowed Ground) going to some combination of Hallowed Ground, Reckoning, Eternal Glory, or Rule of Law. I’m certain it will depend if I’m doing an AOE threat or single target threat or survival build. Also depends on the relative TPS value of those talents.
19 Comments to “A shot in the arm for WoG, and build 13066”
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This will make soloing content so very easy :) I’m curious to see how threat ends up working out and if we will so frantically be fighting for it that even if this heal is great we won’t be able to use it.
I was pretty excited about this as it has alleviated most of my concerns (and even integrated some of my suggestions).
Although.. I also play a warrior tank and my DK tank often so the idea of self-heals is one I’m already pretty comfortable with and enjoy.
Thanks again Rhidach for keeping us in the loop!
I am glad this finally got the buff it needed. I have no clue why they didn’t just make this scale in the first place, the issues that it would of caused by not scaling latter in the game would not have been worth it.
I will definatly be taking this now in both my PvE and PvP builds, 25% is nothing to look down on.
With this fix I am now quite happy where we are as tanks, sure a gap closer would be nice but the longer judgment range helps on that. The only minor concern now is the large empty spaces in rotation but as long as we can hold agro with what we have I don’t mind it.
Orthien’s last blog ..The Other Grass- Final Fantasy XIV
Way back on July 28, right after the Holy Power system was introduced (and long before WoG was introduced), I left this comment on the beta forums:
“The developers have been saying that there will be threat decay as encounters progress, and tanks will have to worry about threat throughout the entire encounter (rather than just at the beginning as it typically happens on live). They have also been saying that mana will matter to healers.
My primary jobs as a tank is to stay alive and hold threat. I would prefer if HP would be used for two options for Prot: (1) a self-heal which requires HP to become active, in order to take some of the pressure off the healers – more HP, the bigger the heal, or (2) a high threat (doesn’t need to be high dmg) attack which required HP to become active – more HP, the higher the threat.”
Now that the balancing act with the numbers is complete, I think my job is done here. You’re welcome.
@Obeyfez
Threat decay hasn’t been implemented, and according to GC, they may not go through with it after all. So that kinda takes out one of those concerns(points? /shrug).
@Rhidach
I know you are trying desperately to find some way to make a McGyver together a gap closer, but…wouldn’t those 2 points in Imp Judgments be better served in Eye for an Eye? Unless it’s been said that it will not proc ever for boss mobs, I would think it’d be handy to have a pseudo spell-retaliate, for threat and such. Not to mention, you’ll be up in most mobs faces anyways, so 20 more yards on a judgment won’t be very beneficial. I dunno, just my 2 cents.
I’ve played around with Eye for an Eye in a few beta dungeon runs, and it came in at roughly my second worst source of damage (above Consecration). That was three or four builds ago, so I’ll have to try it again in heroics (once they fix Sanctuary), and test whether it generates threat or not.
I suspect Reckoning’s going to end up being a must. Eternal Glory’s current form is going to end up overpowered (with the right RNG), so I don’t think it’ll stay as is.
@Lanaka
I heard about the threat decay not being implemented, but at the time of my comment it was a valid concern. And they may still implement it once they fix the current threat issues…
I like the Eye for an Eye talent as well, but I see it more in situational fights where magic damage is a major component. I’d love to see the TPS math behind it; my guess is that the more magical abilities of a boss, the more it will proc, and the more threat you’ll generate.
Speaking of TPS math, looking forward to seeing the reports behind Reckoning as well, always liked that talent.
Rhidach loves himself some quality of life talents – having the extended range judgment is pure QOL, basically giving you another instant ranged add pick-up.
Yes, Eye for an Eye will definitely be situational, but that’s never stopped anyone from min-maxing per encounter. We’ll have to wait for more concrete numbers, but I think Reckoning’s going to be a solid threat boost, despite Seal damage being heavily reduced.
Long-range Judgment is very nice, but we’re already short on buttons to push at the best of times, so I don’t know how reliable it’s going to be for picking up adds. We’ll see!
@Rhidach
28 September 2010 at 8:34 am #
Rhidach loves himself some quality of life talents
Ha! You know me too well.
Reckoning will indeed be a solid source of damage/threat for us. There are already reports that it’s a solid, solid single-target ability which is why it was nerfed to 2 points/20% two builds ago.
It will probably be a hallmark of my single-target build.
@Rhidach
28 September 2010 at 8:28 am #
I guess it would depend on the situation, like Obeyfez says downstream of this comment. A 30 yard judgement is a nice replacement for damage-dealing Hand of Reck, which will make for easier add pick up.
I could maybe see using Eye for an Eye on bosses, assuming it isn’t horribly nerfed or capped by our max health, or doesn’t have some fundamental problem that makes it suck… either of which have a healthy chance of happening. Maybe I’m a pessimist, but I can’t see it standing as is.
I spent a bit more time on the PTR again last night (warning, off-topic comment incoming) and I’ll have to admit I was wrong about the PTR when I said that the only major problem left to fix is our rotation.
Vengeance just plain sucks. In H VH my damage intake usually left me with less than 100 additional AP from Vengeance. And I was taunting constantly. I am highly doubtful that this is in anyway an improvement from other options.
Here is my thinking. I just don’t understand how we are suppose to keep threat on a mob or aoe pack that does very little damage to us and are not suppose to be incredibly ahead on raid bosses that do significant amounts of damage to us. Both of these things do not seem possibly to me. It’s a similar mechanic to rage. More dmg intake equals greater threat. And we all saw the issues with that.
I’m really starting to hate vengeance more and more.
I would imagine Vengeance scales better at 85. You have signifigantly higher health pool (100K, so you’re getting 10k AP!) and the mobs are hitting you harder with much less avoidance than you have now, so Vengeance should stack quicker. I wouldn’t give up on Vengeance yet, especially with reports of the 25k WoG due to a fully capped Vengeance.
Back to the Improved Judgment discussion: It’s a good talent, especially for PvP, just like Pursuit of Justice. Both are helpful, but not mandatory talents for PvE tanking. I will probably err on the cautious side of picking talents for running heroics and our first raid tier (based upon some of the horrifying accounts coming out of the beta now) – I’ll probably stick with threat and survivability talents rather than the quality of life talents. As time goes on, I know I’m going to miss PoJ, and it will eventually be back in my talent tree.
@Rhidach
28 September 2010 at 8:43 am #
I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that’s because Vengeance isn’t tuned for the kind of stamina numbers you have at level 80, it’s intended to revolve around the kind of hp you’ll be rocking at 85. Tanks in heroics gear are knocking on 100k’s door, and I’m sure with a health pool like that (and beyond once you get into raid gear) you’re going to see Vengeance produce much, much better numbers.
The one thing I never got about Vengeance was, isn’t the system supposed to help us stay ahead of dps on threat as they accumulate damage stats and we accumulate health stats? If that’s the case, I will be severely concerned if we see tank threat in heroics and the first raid tier balanced around an assumption of having full Vengeance.
Something to watch for, I suppose.
Won’t WoG also provide a bit of threat via healing? Certainly not as much as a fully-loaded SoR, but something.
Doesn’t the vengeance buff potentially make WoG OP when we are at a full stack and have all that additional AP to boost the heal in later tiers?
Not that I would be complaining, but it seems like a balancing issue is headed our way if we can heal ourselves for such a huge amount that will only increase once we have a full stack of an ability intended to keep our threat competitive, and not one intended to increase our healing capability.
Age old paladin hybrid problems always seem to scare me…
It’s a very scary situation, indeed, and one i highly doubt we’ve heard the last of. I’m sure this AP/SP scaling implementation was just the first step, they are almost guaranteed to tweak this. A quarter of our health back by ourselves free of cost every ~15 seconds is pretty broken for any tank, not to mention it’s (theoretical) uses before a boss pull (Free 25k shield on myself before pulling a boss? I’m sure most guilds are going to stress themselves over making it happen).
In any case, keep your eyes on WoG. It’s gonna go through more changes, I’m positive of it. If it doesn’t, I’ll eat my (nonexistent) hat.
It’s far, far from ‘free of cost’. It certainly doesn’t cost any mana, but that 13.5s of holy power buildup will cost you a SotR in the vicinity of 50-60k – by far our highest threat ability at the moment. Many (including me) would argue that it’s actually the highest cost of any of the active tank self-heals.
A pre-pull 25k shield is also a bit unlikely with the current mechanics. Holy power decays out of combat and you won’t have Vengeance providing all that extra attack power. The 3HP is probably manageable if you found enough critters though. :)
The 3HP is probably manageable if you found enough critters though. :)
I like the way you think.
Alright, you got me on the Free of Cost bit. I’ll take my slap on the wrist now.
As far as my pre boss pull comment went, I meant that I can see many guilds trying to get themselves in a theoretical best possible situation where they’ve got a tank with 3 HoPo and full vengeance ready to pull, by leaving trash alive until right before a pull to maximize the tank’s bubble. If those top-end progression guilds can find a way, you know they will, and that’s what I see getting this a major nerf, if nothing else. Abuse of mechanics like that has happened before, after all.