Protection PTR Concerns

[Lore]

As outlined in Cider's post below, Shield Slam and Shield of Righteousness now suffer from diminishing returns in their damage contributions from Block Value. While most Warriors are unlikely to hit the point where the DR starts to set in (2400 SBV at level 80), many Paladins will.

Due to Holy Shield's 100% uptime, Paladins have been able to get a much more reliable benefit from SBV than Warriors. On top of that, our current real options for the Libram slot as well as our 4-piece T8 bonus are flat increases to SBV. Although stacking Block Value is still not as effective from a mitigation standpoint as gearing for maximum EH and avoidance in most situations, it can come close, and serves as a great way to increase our threat output while still giving us a fairly decent amount of survivability. Obviously it serves quite well in multi-target or fast-hitting situations as well. On the current PTR, in my standard tanking set, I can easily break 3000 Block Value with raid buffs.

Now, Prot Pallies have been capable of some pretty excellent threat output in 3.1 and prior, so we can certainly stand to have our threat scaled back a bit. The issue is that this change actually makes SBV less desirable in 3.2. The entire point of stacking SBV in 3.1 is to maximize threat at a minor expense of survivability. In 3.2, past 2400 SBV, the threat gain quickly begins to taper off. As a result, I'll end up swapping out Block Value pieces for more mitigation-focused pieces beyond that point, as SBV is still not as effective for survivability.

Again, I don't mind the threat loss, but if the goal in 3.2 is to make Block Value more attractive, this does not achieve that goal.

A second concern is with Blessing of Sanctuary. In the recent Paladin Q&A, Ghostcrawler stated:

[blizzard]Q. Blessing of Sanctuary is designed around providing buffs for tanks; are there plans to re-work its design to provide added benefits for more than just tanking?

A. No, we want it to be a tanking Blessing. However, we want it to be a superior tanking buff than Kings for the Protection paladin. In the 3.2 patch notes, we indicated that Sanctuary will also provide the same Stam buff as Kings, but will not stack with Kings (though Kings would still provide bonuses to the other stats).[/blizzard]

In many situations, it will be superior, thanks primarily to the 3% Damage Reduction. However, Discipline Priests also provide the 3% DR effect, and have seen a large rise in popularity in Ulduar. When a Discipline Priest is present, all Sanctuary provides over Kings is the mana return, at the expense of the 10% increase to Strength and Agility that Kings provides. Between Spiritual Attunement and permanent Divine Plea, a Protection Paladin will rarely have mana issues, so Kings is still the preferred blessing hands-down when a Discipline Priest is available. Plus, there's still the hassle of putting Sanctuary on yourself and Kings (or possibly Might/Wisdom) on any other Paladins in the group.

My question here is, why can't Sanctuary just replace Kings entirely? If they no longer stack, can't Sanctuary just give 10% to all stats along with the DR and mana returns? Having its only benefits over Kings being tanking-related is perfectly fine, but is there a reason it should be cast on tanks only? I like and appreciate the direction Sanctuary is being taken, but it needs to go a little bit farther to actually serve a real benefit.

[Warwench]

my impression from reading the blue above, and not testing in any way, is that sac STAM would overwrite the Kings STA, but kings would still provide the other stats.

Anyone tested that?

[Zaxc]

I couldn't agree more, I've always wondered why sanctuary wasn't just an 'upgrade' to kings, many blessings have talents that upgrades them, improved wisdom? improved might? why not make sanctuary improved kings?

Not only does it make buffing much more managable but it also gives us strength which is a great stat for paladin, our second highest stat to be more exact which grants SBV and threat...

As for the new shield block value disminishing return...well I think it will sadly just make more gear to disenchant.

[Roarc]

That sounds correct Warwench but it still makes the buffing quite irritating or clumbersum from the prot-pallies PoV.

If pallies are at the point where Lore states, the DR on thier shield slam is even worse (they're at the limit already, warriors will be with shield block up). How can you have an ability max out at mid-tier level? Haven't we learned anything from our past? Scalability is king and for some reason Blizzard has completely failed and designing scalable protection-abilities. I don't mind trial and error but anyone can see what's been tried on the last two PTR is just random nonsens with 100% focus on PVP and protection specced burst damage output.

Paladins don't have to worry that much about threat and DPS output since they already do quite well (and have abilites that ignore armor) but Warriors really have an issue here.

1. Blizzard has to solve the issue of PVP vs PVE
2. We have a lot of clear comparison casses Pallies vs Warriors or just Tanks vs Tanks, things aren't balanced

My main concern is they are moving in the complete wrong direction from the Warriors PoV and this also goes completely against the idéas of double BV on BV gear in 3.2. BV is a decent threat stat when you've reached the point of hit and exp cap, someone at EJ even thought with the double BV it might scale better that STR for a warrior even in regards to DPS and possibly threat (this was before they say "DR on shield slams"). Then again it's quite odd gearing for 1 ability…

Make SBV more useful in BOTH offensive and defensive abilities, not the half arse limited stat it's turning into now.

Regards
Roarc

[Esch]

My question here is, why can't Sanctuary just replace Kings entirely? If they no longer stack, can't Sanctuary just give 10% to all stats along with the DR and mana returns?

The moment Sanc has the same benefits of BoK plus the 3% damage reduction, you make a protadin a VERY desired raid spec. Blizzard has been making a considerable effort to remove the need to bring any single spec (though shaman, as a class, are still highly desired). That would go against the logic of bringing the player, not the class, not the spec, to a raid.

Unless, of course, you want to have every raid bring a retadin with Kings as his/her 31 pt talent. I can see the popularity of that idea all the way back to vanilla. However, that's what is already happening to some Protadins I know, even in my raid group.

I personally would like to see BoSanc shifted from a Blessing and become an offshoot/extension of Imp RF, essentially part of a long talent chain. Thus, the mana regen aspect of BoSanc is added to Imp RF, removing the competition between Kings and Sanc. The Blessing itself, being worth 3% damage reduction, becomes an option, but the paladin retains enough mana regen innately without concern for whether he has BoK (stats) or BoSanc (3% DR) on himself.

[Lore]

The moment Sanc has the same benefits of BoK plus the 3% damage reduction, you make a protadin a VERY desired raid spec. Blizzard has been making a considerable effort to remove the need to bring any single spec (though shaman, as a class, are still highly desired). That would go against the logic of bringing the player, not the class, not the spec, to a raid.

No more desired than Discipline Priests are currently.

[Eroth]

No more desired than Discipline Priests are currently.

I'm pretty sure that it's been tested that BoS stacks with Renewed Hope here.
Discipline Healing Compendium v3.1 - Page 7 - Elitist Jerks

[Nadir_]

Merging Kings and Sanctuary is unnecessary and I highly doubt it's happening anytime soon with the change of Kings to a baseline talent.

A raid buffed progression Paladin is not going to be anywhere near 2400 BV, let alone 3000 BV. In BiS 3.1 gear, we're at 1883 BV when fully raid buffed. While T9 has a hefty amount of BV on it, we'll be hovering in the low 2000s because our new libram has avoidance on it. If there was a nerf, we won't be able to notice it.

Prior to the implementation of BV diminishing returns, the doubling of block value failed to make it competitive versus avoidance for progression tanks. BV gearing choices for the most part come at the expense of significant amounts of avoidance. Generally the itemization for such piecess are Defense, Block Rating, BV. I have yet to see pieces with Defense, Dodge, BV in WoTLK. Being able to block for 3000 or even 4000 will never outweight a 8-10% loss in avoidance in terms of total damage taken over time.

[Durandro]

They could always make Improved Kings a self-cast only spell.

Thus there won't be any 'need' to bring a Prot Paladin. It's just a good blessing to put on themselves.

[Lore]

I'm pretty sure that it's been tested that BoS stacks with Renewed Hope here.
Discipline Healing Compendium v3.1 - Page 7 - Elitist Jerks

Interesting. It's not supposed to.

[Lore]

A raid buffed progression Paladin is not going to be anywhere near 2400 BV, let alone 3000 BV.

I have 3017 on the PTR raid buffed with libram and 2pc T8 active.

[Nadir_]

I have 3017 on the PTR raid buffed with libram and 2pc T8 active.

If you have block value that high, this means you're choosing to wear block value at the expense of a significant amount of avoidance. Based on your armory, this would be your belt, ring2, boots, gloves, neck, and shoulders.

In your current gear, your fully raid buffed avoidance: 58.69%

Let's exchange those BV pieces for common avoidance options: Shard of the Crystal Forest, Spiked Deathdealers, Indestructible Girdle, Platinum Band of the Aesir, Shoulderplates of the Deconstructor.

Raid buffed avoidance: 63.36%

4.67% additional avoidance will result in a much greater decrease in damage taken over time than blocking for ~1200 more per hit. Even with a doubling of block value on PTR, it remains an inferior gearing strategy for progression raid tanks.

[jere]

I'm pretty sure that it's been tested that BoS stacks with Renewed Hope here.
Discipline Healing Compendium v3.1 - Page 7 - Elitist Jerks

Lore is correct, it isn't supposed to. Back when it was tacked onto grace it did not stack (they even highlighted this in their raid buffs list back then). When it got moved to renewed hope, it started stacking. It needs to be reported as a bug honestly. I reported it on a PTR at some point, but haven't seen any changes on it.

[Krashtork]

Lore is correct, it isn't supposed to. Back when it was tacked onto grace it did not stack (they even highlighted this in their raid buffs list back then). When it got moved to renewed hope, it started stacking. It needs to be reported as a bug honestly. I reported it on a PTR at some point, but haven't seen any changes on it.

BoS and Renewed Hope have been stacking since 3.0 was on the PTR back in TBC. Me and a friend tested this and were quite surprised.

[Zaxc]

Even if it doesn't look like it, with shamans totems overwriting our blessing (and same for warrior shout) i've found myself in situations where the raid was completely blessed (one way or an other) and still had a paladin who could cast sanctuary on the whole raid.

In situations where there's a ton of AoE, -3% damage on 25 persons might save a lot of mana to the healers, even if their mana is endless, so sanctuary can still be useful, its just...not very user friendly.

Making it an improved kings for protadins would just be a logical choice, both other tree already have an improved version of their blessing.

Block value is not totally wasted nowaday, if lore has 3K and only 5% less avoidance, that means that when he doesn't dodge, at least he takes a good amount less damage. A 23k hit goes down to a 20k hit, so if the boss gives 2 in a row and hit the paladin, paladin 1 has 1/20 (5%) chances that his dodge will save him from the second hit, while lore will most likely survive since he'll take 40k damage and has higher hp than that, however, not higher than 46k.

Somewhere, a good balance between avoidance and mitigation makes a paladin life easyer, especially since you will end up blocking 100% of all hits sent to you, 3k damage on a 30k hit is still 10% mitigation, some classes would kill for 10% damage mitigation. It will also make it easyer for healers to full you, since right now, dodge or not, they will heal you.

[Martie]

In situations where there's a ton of AoE, -3% damage on 25 persons might save a lot of mana to the healers, even if their mana is endless, so sanctuary can still be useful, its just...not very user friendly.

Making it an improved kings for protadins would just be a logical choice, both other tree already have an improved version of their blessing.

Yeah, and even upgraded neither is as good as kings.

Block value is not totally wasted nowaday, if lore has 3K and only 5% less avoidance, that means that when he doesn't dodge, at least he takes a good amount less damage. A 23k hit goes down to a 20k hit, so if the boss gives 2 in a row and hit the paladin, paladin 1 has 1/20 (5%) chances that his dodge will save him from the second hit, while lore will most likely survive since he'll take 40k damage and has higher hp than that, however, not higher than 46k.

Yes, that would be the case if we were comparing 3k block vs no block whatsoever.
We are comparing ~3k block to ~2k block, though, so that kite doesn't quite fly.

[Hadj]

Why would you bring a protection warrior to a raid if you can have a similar mechanics tank that has better burst threat build, endless rage bar and buffs up the whole raid for 10% increased stats and 3% reduced damage? Buffing up BoSanc to the level of BoK is just not feasible from a "Bring the player not the class" point of view. And it would have the whole raid covered with all blessings by 3 instead of 4 paladins. Imho buffing it up with 10% stamina increase is really nice especially in the cases where BoSanc shines up (General Vezax as most recent example) but that's as far as it should go.

[Nengal]

This is beginning -or has been a problem since arena in BC - to become a problem, in my opinion. Blizzard trying to re-work game mechanics for PVE to stop the complaining in PVP. With all the new types of coding they've been implimenting (IE: Dual-talents and how zones load differently depending on the quests you've done) can't they just completely seperate PVP and PVE? Why not make a set of game mechanics that works for PVE while you're not flagged or not in a major PVP area and once you enter an arena, battleground, or flag yourself, have an entirely new set of mechanics come into play. It would be similar to dual talent, but it's an immediate change and you don't have a choice.

Because obviously Blizzard has a difficult time balancing how to manage PVE environment mechanics within classes while keeping it non-OP for PVP.

[jere]

BoS and Renewed Hope have been stacking since 3.0 was on the PTR back in TBC. Me and a friend tested this and were quite surprised.

The change to Renewed Hope didn't happen until 3.1. Before it was in Grace. We tested against Grace and it didn't stack. It did start stacking when they moved it into Renewed Hope, but that didn't happen until 3.1.

EDIT:
Patch 3.1: WoW -> Patch Notes -> 3.1.0

[Chasey]

I am pretty happy w/the BoS change. It assures us we have a +10% hp buff and -3% mitigation in damage incoming at all times.
I really don't like or understand completely why Blizz is trying to fix BV and the at some point slapping it w/DR.
My other concern which Lore didn't touch on, and I myself am not on the PTR to test, is the DR getting buffed. Dodge and Parry are very close now and it seems as if they are trying to stream line these two stats by make them so equal.

How hard did dodge get smacked w/the DR bat? Where is those that are on the PTR dodge and parry at as compared to 3.1's set up?