Protection Paladins in Mists of Pandaria

[Airowird]

So I fiddled with my Warrior's gear (because he has more of it) in the beta and came up with the following:

Dodge/Parry rating conversion seems to be tuned down to ~256.05 rating for 1% avoidance pre-DR, based on 110 data points.
Base Dodge chance (completely nekid) is 0.01%
Base Parry chance at 192 (base) Strength is 4.39%
DR formula remains the same (identical c & k values)
Assuming we exclude the base strength value, 74.2% of Strength is converted into Parry Rating. Actual Parry Rating becomes 2-3x what the paper doll says. I had up to 17.49% Parry with 1786 rating & 3375 Strength, expected value without Str would've been 10.75%. Initial test shows it is indeed correct, but might need more data on it.

As seen on 1-4-12 on EU beta, Block does not seem to have a DR attached to it. Haven't had time yet to make sure it isn't purely a visual bug, although I hope it isn't.

Guesstimate says that system is designed to go hit 1/3 swings avoidance, 1/3 block & 1/3 full hits at end of expansion.

[Pagezero]

Dodge/Parry rating conversion seems to be tuned down to ~256.05 rating for 1% avoidance pre-DR, based on 110 data points.

Are you getting matching values, I am calculating around 264.2 for at least dodge but the numbers are a bit off, I was thinking C and K might have changed.

As seen on 1-4-12 on EU beta, Block does not seem to have a DR attached to it. Haven't had time yet to make sure it isn't purely a visual bug, although I hope it isn't.

On the US beta I am seeing DR, see my Block post for details, the character sheet is bugged once it comes up or you change gear, change stances and it will update with the DR value.

Guesstimate says that system is designed to go hit 1/3 swings avoidance, 1/3 block & 1/3 full hits at end of expansion.

I was thinking the same thing.

Mastery is getting way worse with DR/two roll, dodge and parry seem to be lowed by like 33%, is this a hint to just start stacking stam again? Assuming things stay the same we are going to want to shoot for hit/exp cap and all stam, I guess at 90 things could change.

[Fetzie]

Mastery is getting way worse with DR/two roll, dodge and parry seem to be lowed by like 33%, is this a hint to just start stacking stam again? Assuming things stay the same we are going to want to shoot for hit/exp cap and all stam, I guess at 90 things could change.

With block being unreliable (i.e. not cappable), at this point in time I don't really see why we should do anything other than stack stamina :/

I DON'T WANT THIS!

I like playing around with stamina, mastery, dodge and parry rating to get the stamina while retaining block cap. I find this as fun, if not more fun, than actually tanking the instances. I also fail to comprehend why Blizzard hates the idea of block capping so much. Make the special attacks blockable, make the druid and dk masteries provide a similar benefit. There - I just made all 4 (5) tanks balanced and equivalent.

If druids, dks and brewmasters are balanced at the same level as a block capped paladin or warrior, what would the problem with block capping actually be?

[Leucifer]

With block being unreliable (i.e. not cappable), at this point in time I don't really see why we should do anything other than stack stamina :/

I DON'T WANT THIS!

I like playing around with stamina, mastery, dodge and parry rating to get the stamina while retaining block cap. I find this as fun, if not more fun, than actually tanking the instances. I also fail to comprehend why Blizzard hates the idea of block capping so much. Make the special attacks blockable, make the druid and dk masteries provide a similar benefit. There - I just made all 4 (5) tanks balanced and equivalent.

If druids, dks and brewmasters are balanced at the same level as a block capped paladin or warrior, what would the problem with block capping actually be?

Hmmm.... should I take a stab at this?
Because block capping is a "guaranteed" damage reduction. DK's and druids never had a 100% damage reduction coverage equivalent (until maybe 4.3 when DK's got some nice buffs to passive reduction).

Of course.... Blizzard could introduce a DK "weapon block" and for bears a similar effect.

As for the idea of why Blizzard hates block capping.... well it creates an "artificial" mechanic into the fights. It creates a line.... like the old defense rating.... that people are intentionally gearing towards vice actually "playing". Instead of playing and trying to "actively tank" better... people are now more focused on getting block capped.... and then trying to figure out how to tank.

I'd have to say that's one reason why. It's made CTC the new "Defense Rating".

The other reason.... well, for encounters, I just created a new mechanic that I have to take into account for encounter design. You now have to figure.... all paladins and warriors are going to be block/ctc capped.... meaning that a percentage of my attacks against these classes will be less threatenting. HOWEVER.... I can't compensate with larger hits as there are 2 classes that have "wonky" mastery mechanics instead and they would be negatively affected.

So... choice 1..... Give those two classes an identical functioning ability that raises them up and puts them on par.... giving the game a new "defense rating", which was something they said they wanted to get away from....

Or choice 2.... kick that from those two classes.... put them on the same playing field as DK's and Warriors.... eliminate the "Chase the Rating" game.... and make encounter design easier for me.

Choice 2..... makes DK's, bears, monks all balanced with a warrior and pally ..... by removing the block cap / ctc thing as a factor.

It's kind of like that evil genie who, when you ask them for a wish.... they twist your wish into something you didn't really intend.
Then again.... Blizzard has a long and delightful history of doing this.

[Wooji]

Of course.... Blizzard could introduct a DK "weapon block" and for bears a similar effect.

This is exactly what they are doing for bears. Our mastery in MoP is straight up increasing armor.

[Fetzie]

Of course.... Blizzard could introduct a DK "weapon block" and for bears a similar effect.

Isn't this exactly what they have done?

[Leucifer]

Isn't this exactly what they have done?

You're referring to savage defense and blood shield?
Hardly the same.

Blood shield is not "always on" for one. It's a lot better than it used to be, but it's still not the full-time automatic coverage provided by CTC.
Blood shield is also not static in the amount of protection that it gives. Again, better than it used to be, but not entirely.

At the end of the day, a pally/warrior with full CTC is not as vulnerable as DK's and Druids (to a lesser degree) to getting crushed. There's still that chance that our little trick won't be up and ready, and we'll take one or two hits in a row that finally break us. You might think this is inconsequential.... but it's NOT. Over the course of a long fight, you're pretty likely that at some time, things are going to happen in a way that meet this limitation.

So.... in the present world.... Blizzard is developing fights that, in order for me to make it threatening to a CTC capped pally/warrior.... I am likely going to be making it MORE deadly to the DK/Bear when those events (blood shield not up and string of hits delivered) meet.

BUT..... but eliminating CTC.... I have to develop encounters where I have to consider that ALL tanks are going to have periods where they are pretty exposed. All have a tool that can give them a breather. All have something that can give them periodic relief.... which fits more in with what Blizzard talked about in regards to "ActiveTanking".

This is exactly what they are doing for bears. Our mastery in MoP is straight up increasing armor.

That could very well work to make up the difference. Same with DK's.... if they got a frozen popsicle man type of damage resistance..

Again, though..... this goes in the opposite direction of what Blizzard stated where they wanted to take things.
They want MORE active tanking..... not less.

And consider.... the whole thing with CTC.... again, ran contrary to what they tried to accomplish by removing defense rating. The whole idea of CTC became a "duplicate" of the situation that they had with defense. You must have X amount or else. Think about it. What happened in Wrath if you were a tank and you didn't have enough defense?...... You didn't tank! What was becoming the case with pally/warrior if you didn't have full CTC?..... You didn't tank!

What I see.... just my opinion.... is that Blizzard is trying to make these stats BONUSES.... not what everything hinges on.

[Airowird]

Dodge/Parry numbers are pretty correct, I only had a few rounding errors at <500 Dodge rating numbers. Coefficients remain the same.

Block seems confusingly bugged, adding trinkets or reforging changes the Block chance with the non-DR value, ended up with numbers that didn't mean anything untill I changed stance.

On CTC & active abilities:
Druids will not only get the only Mastery that is guaranteed to work every swing (=what CTC is now), their active mitigation ability also reduces more damage than any other, being pretty much a 6s-but-no-CD version of Shield Wall.
DKs are the ones with the most control and against a slow swinging boss should even be able to DS nearly every other swing, allowing the heal right after a strike and get the shield on the other one to act as a CTC-like damage reduction. (Yes, it's not the same, but it'll seem like it to healers!). It is also the only Mastery that doesn't have any DR mechanic attached to it and if it remains as it is, it's going to be completely OP in 5.2. And if they balance for later raiding tiers, you're gonna suck in 5.0. Have fun with that one!
Paladin & Warrior active abilities are unreliable (with bad luck you only get that single block out of it and no other damage reduction) and the amount of damage it reduces is completely reliant on RNG, with no guarantee that it actually will reduce any damage. IT feels a lot like trying to avoid crushing blows, only with them being normal/full hits.

As stat priorities go:
Paladin: Reforge your mastery to Dodge/Parry, gem Stamina, complain on forums.
Warrior: Reforge to mastery (threat stats over avoidance), gem for stamina or mastery socket bonuses, smile when you crit block
DK: Reforge all you can to Mastery, gem it, enchant it, complain you don't have enough.
Druid: Don't reforge Dodge vs Mastery at all, gem whatever gets you the socket bonus, claim dibs on armor trinkets, laugh at the other tanks for having to spend an extra 50g every item upgrade.


If anyone wants my dodge/parry numbers spreadsheet or the DR Maple file (can also copy to notepad if you know how to read Maple input), let me know

[Fetzie]

What was becoming the case with pally/warrior if you didn't have full CTC?..... You didn't tank!

Except it is so easy to block cap, paladins do it with the HoT 5man gear, warriors with 391/397 gear. So it hardly matters as a "barrier" and is definitely nothing like Defense Skill was in classic, tbc and wrath, especially with so much stuff completely ignoring block anyway.

[Leucifer]

On CTC & active abilities:
Druids will not only get the only Mastery that is guaranteed to work every swing (=what CTC is now), their active mitigation ability also reduces more damage than any other, being pretty much a 6s-but-no-CD version of Shield Wall.

Sounds pretty beastly. (pun intended)

DKs are the ones with the most control and against a slow swinging boss should even be able to DS nearly every other swing, allowing the heal right after a strike and get the shield on the other one to act as a CTC-like damage reduction. (Yes, it's not the same, but it'll seem like it to healers!). It is also the only Mastery that doesn't have any DR mechanic attached to it and if it remains as it is, it's going to be completely OP in 5.2. And if they balance for later raiding tiers, you're gonna suck in 5.0. Have fun with that one!

This isn't really a change at all. This is how deathknights have been from .... well, pretty much 3.3 onward really, when blood tanking took the lead.
Smart use of death strike is GOING to be good. Assuming that you don't run out of runes.... or find yourself forced to use it to help offset large amounts of damage from other sources. It really depends on how damage is leveled at the DK and how fast.

If it's so OP.... then it should be overpowered presently, as this is how it works at present.

Again, the simple fact of the matter is, if you are able to disrupt the DK's rhythm and force a break in resources long enough to allow blood shield to wear off, or where incoming damage previous to a death strike is minimal.... then it doesn't work all that well. If you allow a Dk to settle into a rhythm... then yeah.... it's going to work like a charm.

Paladin & Warrior active abilities are unreliable (with bad luck you only get that single block out of it and no other damage reduction) and the amount of damage it reduces is completely reliant on RNG, with no guarantee that it actually will reduce any damage. IT feels a lot like trying to avoid crushing blows, only with them being normal/full hits.

So.... this is bringing things a bit on par with DKs.

As stat priorities go:
Paladin: Reforge your mastery to Dodge/Parry, gem Stamina, complain on forums.
Warrior: Reforge to mastery (threat stats over avoidance), gem for stamina or mastery socket bonuses, smile when you crit block
DK: Reforge all you can to Mastery, gem it, enchant it, complain you don't have enough.
Druid: Don't reforge Dodge vs Mastery at all, gem whatever gets you the socket bonus, claim dibs on armor trinkets, laugh at the other tanks for having to spend an extra 50g every item upgrade.

Yeah. Sounds kind of like what we'll see.

So.... pally may not be the undisputed king anymore.

[Leucifer]

Except it is so easy to block cap, paladins do it with the HoT 5man gear, warriors with 391/397 gear. So it hardly matters as a "barrier" and is definitely nothing like Defense Skill was in classic, tbc and wrath, especially with so much stuff completely ignoring block anyway.

Yeah. It became really easy. It doesn't change the fact that if you didn't have CTC, you weren't tanking. It just meant that, if you couldn't hit CTC in later stages of Cata...... you probably didn't know what the hell you were doing.... and no one was going to let you tank anyway.

So... it turned out being a bit of a "damage reduction gift".

[Takethecake]

Thing about dk tanking is blizzard kept throwing things at them over and over to compensate for their supposed squeamishness compared to shield tanks. Larger passive damage reduction, an arsenal of cooldowns to choose from (including one that triggers automatically), multiple forms of self healing.

Then blizzard said they wanted to model an active tanking style similar to dk's where player skill has more affect on the survivability of the tank. Then they give all 3 other tanks a 6 second buff that is their mastery and smack them on the ass and tell them to enjoy the active mitigation. Babysitting a 6 second buff isn't active mitigation... it's like paladin seals all over again except blizzard forgot their lesson.

That's not even counting comparing the actual effects of the mastery. You can claim that the DK mastery is unreliable all you want, but you have almost complete control over it and it is hugely effective (look at HM yor'sahj being made trivial by dk tanks). The new paladin and warrior masteries are a click to lower the RNG of their mitigation... but it still is vastly RNG and even worse has a DR on it to make sure it will always be RNG.

[Airowird]

...
If it's so OP.... then it should be overpowered presently, as this is how it works at present.
...
So.... this is bringing things a bit on par with DKs.

The problem is that presently, it is balanced against those shield tanks having (near) CTC. In MoP, Paladin,Warrior & Druid Mastery are getting nerfed, DK remains the same, that is what is balanced now, will become OP then.
With Blood Presence alone, a DK will have enough FU pairs to keep up diseases and DS every 5s, so in this scenario all incoming damage will contribute exactly once to a DS (actually, a good DK could get more out of it, but let's say you DS exactly every 5s). You will always heal yourself for 20% of the damage and you will shield yourself for atleast 10% (50%*20% at 0 Mastery rating).
That's 30% right there, something a Paladin would need to Block cap themselves for (have fun stacking 25350 Mastery rating)
On top of that, every tank has a DR except DKs, so the increase just keep on going as you stack more Mastery

Here's some numbers for ya, counting JUST the shield:
Druid: 15-35% more damage taken than a DK tank
Warrior: 10-25% more damage taken
Paladin: 15-40% more damage taken

You're right, Paladins won't be the 'undisputed king' anymore, DKs will.


Edit: to clarify it's the DK mastery:
If you compare Mastery stacking to avoiding, DKs will take 5% less damage in starting gear, but up to 25% less damage in end expansion gear. No other class has such a giant damage reduction when stacking a single stat.

[Lore]

I have no problem with the removal of block capping. I'm not particularly for or against it. I don't really want mindless stamina stacking, but there are other ways to deal with that. Specifically, if health pools are large enough that it takes a while for you to die anyway, stamina becomes less useful and the value of avoidance increases (you're not in danger of dying to burst, which is what stam is for, but more avoidance is easier on healers' mana).

I don't like the "just give every tank something like Block" solution. Shield tanking should feel different.

[Fetzie]

We won' know how boss hits relate to tank health until we start running raids though, which is probably a long way off yet. What with seeing 1500 stamina on entry level blues, I'm thinking we are going to be getting huge health pools without even thinking about gems.

[Lore]

I agree, which is why I'm hoping that it'll work out so the tank who blindly stacks stamina is just as wrong as the tank who blindly stacks mastery or avoidance. It's totally possible for things to work out so that you tailor your setup to what you need more of (much like healers juggling between mana regen and throughput)

[Héimdall]

Beyond that, my main beef with Paladin tanks is the current design means that if you're tanking a lot of mobs, Mastery is the best stat, but if you're only tanking one mob, Mastery is the worst stat. (near worthless)

This makes me want 2 sets of tank gear / specs, 1 AoE and 1 Single target...not had to do that in quite some time!!

[Xequecal]

Am I the only one even slightly annoyed by the myopic focus on effective health and tanks completely ignoring anything that doesn't qualify as EH? Someone just said that because block isn't guaranteed, you should ignore it and just stack stamina? Druids have a lot less avoidance? "Avoidance isn't EH, so it's irrelevant." This stuff is ridiculous.

I didn't know this when I made my original post, but right now on beta things are set to 0% base dodge and 10% base parry, which means Druids probably will have 15% less avoidance than WAR/PAL if they keep this in. Druids will still be less spiky but they'll take a LOT more damage overall. I don't know how you can balance that better without completely homogenizing the tanks.

[Leucifer]

I have no problem with the removal of block capping. I'm not particularly for or against it. I don't really want mindless stamina stacking, but there are other ways to deal with that. Specifically, if health pools are large enough that it takes a while for you to die anyway, stamina becomes less useful and the value of avoidance increases (you're not in danger of dying to burst, which is what stam is for, but more avoidance is easier on healers' mana).

I don't like the "just give every tank something like Block" solution. Shield tanking should feel different.

We actually kind of saw this with Cata, where avoidance/block clearly took higher priority over stamina. Bears were maybe the only class that ever really stacked stam gems (except at release before people started getting 359 gear).

1) Agree. No major issues for/against block capping, so long as they (Blizzard) go about it in a logical manner.

2) Agree. I'm NOT for mindless stam stacking. But again, this will be driven by encounter design and the bang-for-the-buck gained from stamina. Or in plain English, if you make stam stacking favorable for tanks, tanks are going to do it.

3) Health pools being large enough. Agree.... on the point that health pool size relative to the damage received relative to the size of heals received. These all have to balance. If any one of these three supersedes the other, then tanks will gear differently to take advantage of the design, intended or not intended.

I get your point on the "don't give every tank a 'block' button". I TOTALLY AND WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE that shield tanking should feel different.

I do kind of agree with Blizzard's move away from this CTC idea. Where block + avoidance (dodge/parry) means I never take a full hit. It's really at a point where it's "free damage reduction". A warrior/pally tank is NOT going to go into raid without it. Hell, I'm not even sure you can NOT get CTC in current (4.3 content) gear. Thing is, for the druid and DK.... Blizzard had to throw in some major mechanics changes and freebies in order to keep those tank classes on par. Especially for DK's where 4.3 was just oodles of fun gifts to us, to the order of increased passive damage reduction from blade barrier and 2 extra charges on bone shield.... giving us nearly full-time 20% damage reduction from that.

BUT..... by removing the current block mechanic and this CTC thing, you drop pally/warrior to the same baseline as DK and Bear. Avoidance suddenly become your base RNG damage reduction mechanic. Block for pally/warrior becomes this cool little bonus damage reduction tool that isn't on all the time, like DK death strike/blood shield and Bear's Savage Defense (pre-4.3 buffage). Pally/Warrior gets their block button as a "mini-cooldown" to help bridge the gaps from not having CTC, DK's use bone shield in an identical manner, and bears..... um.... not sure what toy they will have.

In a way, it's actually another form of homogenization. And here's what I kind of see coming from that......
- All tanks have avoidance to the same scale. Dodge and parry for all.
- All tanks have a sometimes on "passive" damage reduction.... block = blood shield = savage defense.... a "bonus" damage reduction
- All tanks get a frequent mini-cooldown ..... shield block button = bone shield = something for bears similar..... actively used by the player to counter heavy spikes.

The advantage of this to Blizzard is that you don't have to account for the variances in tanking we currently have. They would be dealing with flavors of the same thing.

[Tielyn]

Weighing in on the druid front here:

The change to Savage Defense (55 Rage, flat 40% damage reduction) is offset by the following changes:
- A 17% dodge loss in a 1:1 live:MoP comparison on my character sheet, due to missing talent points and an adjustment to agi contribution to dodge.
- Mastery only gives armor now, and on me, a paltry 10% armor gain, which translated to 3% less damage. Doesn't do a thing for SD unlike our current mastery; I had a bonus 66% buff to mine, for example.
- It takes up over half of our rage bar, which means you have to be really judicious with the offensive stuff and survival Frenzied Regen cooldown, or you'll be without your Savage Defense for awhile. Which is the same as tanking before we had it at all, only with less dodge.

-Tielyn

In other words: looks great on paper ("I get to control when it's up now?") but what they took away makes us hella squishy if we're not spamming to keep it up. Since none of us had that extra button (it used to be RNG related based on how often we crit) bears are going to need to adjust their rotations to take it into account.

-Tielyn