4.2 Holy Shield change from 10% damage reduction to 5% block chance

[Stephanius]

Protection

Holy Shield now increases block chance by 5% while active, instead of increasing the amount of damage blocked by 10%.
Capping Mastery Harder in 4.2
We are in the process of trying some different numbers for various talents and mechanics on the PTR, with the goal of making it harder (or impossible) to cap mastery. What we want to avoid is making mastery worthless or causing other undesirable effects.

If we are successful, we will adjust the other tanks to be relatively balanced with paladins again.

If we aren't successful, we know what the fall back position is (basically what we have now).

At this time, we're in the middle of examining this and other changes. Please be reminded that we do read the forums, and appreciate feedback. A dispassionate perspective goes a long way. (Blue Tracker (http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/175861/holy-shield-in-42-help-me-understand) / Official Forums (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2522164908?page=6#105))http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2304-Tier-12-Warlock-Multi-Race-Screenshots-Blue-Posts-The-Daily-Blink

Looking at my own stats armed with pencil and napkin, it looks like this with 4.1 rating levels. I'm mastery heavy with 58% block. Comparing 58%x40%=23.2% with 63%x30%=18.0% means 5.2% more damage taken.

It sounds like they want to increase paladin damage taken for balance reasons.

What confuses me is
- that they plan to do it by nerfing the core mitigation mechanic.
- how does this compare to warriors with their 30% normal 60% critical blocks?
- how this will fuck up gear scaling for T12+

Can anyone shed some light on this one for me?

On the official forums there is something of a shouting match going on (surprise!) with some warrior pointing at Seal of Insight in indignation. I use SoI occasionally, but find that it does little more than increase the amount of overhealing I receive. Without hit and expertise from gear, I find misses, dodges and parries a huge drain of threat so I actually value the 10 expertise from the glyph highly for more reliable threat, especially at the start of a fight or when swapping back and fourth.
Does anyone find their healers noticing / demanding SoI? To me it looks niche at best.

[Stephanius]

Nevermind. =]

I should have searched Maintankadin first.

Theck said:

In any event, it's not worth spending much time working out the details of this change yet. It was pretty clear from the moment the PTR patch notes went up that we weren't seeing the whole story. It's meaningless to run a lot of math on the change from 10% block value to 5% block chance when we know that there's stuff happening behind the scenes that we don't have details for yet.
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=31642

[Tengenstein]

Here's a rough sketch of what were talking about, warrior best case is with both HTL procced and Shield Block up but with , worst case is with neither up. All of them are using the eternal meta and someone how have 0% chance to dodge, parry or be missed.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/Tammuz/blocks5.jpg

Edit: but yeah from the patch notes i would expect them to add something to holy shield so that any mastery rating that takes you past 102.4% increase the size of your holy shield. Or something else that will mean its nigh impossible to cap mastery

Edit 2: added a line showing a prot warrior with max SB uptime of 30% and average of 50% uptime on HTL

[Exiledknight]

They stated if they like the change they will be nerfing all other tanks to bring them down to paladin levels, and if not to revert things, however unless expertise is added or "Firelands Precision" is added then Warriors at some point will become the go to tanks hands down with CB.

[Giliandrix]

Paladins too good, they get nerfed, what's the problem here.

[Tengenstein]

That once a pally reaches unhittable Mastery is junk. Warriors mastery past unhittable still has a survival benefit, and bears and DKs cannot cap mastery due to their mechanics.

[Bigbad]

I wonder if they will nerf the warrior mastery. Currently 57% block and 37% crit block not counting shieldblock and HtL puts me past 40% blockvalue on average (30%*1,37=41,1)
If paladins are too good warriors will only get better once we get unhittable. So either they tweak the numbers on mastery a little bit or they give bosses expertise. Letting us get unhittable seems a bigger issue then the blockvalue if you ask me.

[Theotherone]

Does anyone find their healers noticing / demanding SoI? To me it looks niche at best.

I heal on a Pally and Disc priest and our MT is a Pally and I couldn't tell you if my life depended on it, if he uses Seal of Insight. I can tell if he uses his WoG or LoH or pops a cooldown; but SoI use really isn't on my radar i.e. it's not something I feel strongly enough about to care if the tank uses it.

I care if I use it as a healer as I like the mana regen.

[Reev]

I heal on a Pally and Disc priest and our MT is a Pally and I couldn't tell you if my life depended on it, if he uses Seal of Insight. I can tell if he uses his WoG or LoH or pops a cooldown; but SoI use really isn't on my radar i.e. it's not something I feel strongly enough about to care if the tank uses it.

I care if I use it as a healer as I like the mana regen.

At low levels it's really noticeable. But it doesn't really matter at low levels anyway, where you could probably just heal a whole instance with Renew or Holy Shock or Rejuv.

[Tengenstein]

I wonder if they will nerf the warrior mastery. Currently 57% block and 37% crit block not counting shieldblock and HtL puts me past 40% blockvalue on average (30%*1,37=41,1)
If paladins are too good warriors will only get better once we get unhittable. So either they tweak the numbers on mastery a little bit or they give bosses expertise. Letting us get unhittable seems a bigger issue then the blockvalue if you ask me.

I doubt it or at least i hope not, since before unhittable warriors and paladins will be about equal, so any nerf will have to happen to the portion of our mastery that affect unhittable, So something like extra Block from SB not affecting Crit block chances or HTL not affecting Crit block, or a just straight up nerf to crit blocks scaling from mastery. at the same they would need to cap the size of Blood shield and Savage Defense absorbs, or the Face tanks would have an incredible advantage

No what Blizz need to do is add something so pallies have a reason to stack mastery past unhittable. Something smiliar to warriors, so that any block chance past unhittable is turned into better survival.

[Airowird]

Didn't they implement the 10% extra reduction over block chance because they were afraid of people getting unhittable prot pallies??

I smell Firewell Radiance incoming...

[Fetzie]

They changed HS because it was possible to block cap a paladin in blue 346 gear in beta (the 346 geared premades were capable of block capping).

edit: According to MMOC datamining the change has been reverted in the newest build (14133)

[Krenian]

Paladins too good, they get nerfed, what's the problem here.

Might want to add more than just a one liner that might piss a couple of paladin players on here and cause the thread to derail into a cesspool of nothingness.

--

Folks, sometimes you can only put a one liner because there isn't much else you can say. But in discussion threads like this one, try not to post something that might cause other players and forum readers to go ballistic about? Use some common sense here. If you post something, think about how you would react if someone did the same thing.

[Insahnity]

Kren, you are far too nice for what it really was.

Anyways, I was thinking Guarded by the Light could be toyed with. Mastery increases the size of the heal (or heal bubble), in addition to a Holy shield providing a static block mechanic. Decouple scaling block with mastery on paladins, making it more DK/Bear-ish.

[feralminded]

I sincerely hope they just implement expertise or something for bosses so we can see some scaling. The whole "stats make sense at the beginning of an expansion and are stupid by the end" is tiresome. They have already said they intend to do this with hit-rating so why not the defensive ones as well? Ragnaros has 5 expertise ... fair enough ... or something.