Random Cataclysm discussion

[Norellicus]

Edit: blah wrong thread

[Boyiee]

What I'm wondering the most is if it'll be worth using Soulburn + Seed to Corruption single enemies just to get the shard back. Locks got amazing bonuses regardless...

no, just drainsoul.

[FailureMidgard]

no, just drainsoul.

I guess it could be worth draining for 0 ticks on some random add...but what about something like Rag, he clears all debuffs at the start of a phase, you can Soulburn+not use it and go down a shard, or you can Soulburn+SoC (then apply all dots with +10%) and keep the shard to use again later in the phase/etc. I dunno, it may be worth it?

[niwaar]

A lot of times, the time the tank and the raid want the cooldown overlaps. Alysrazor after burnout, Rhyolith P2 stomps, Bethtilac P2 in general, Domo slashes. (Of course, nothing matters post nerf). In any case, there are a few times you may have to pick, but for the most part, there's a decent bit of overlap.

Yes, there are times that the tank and the raid would appreciate having a cooldown at the same time. This is one of the reasons DG does not work for both the tank and the raid. I can see this being meaningful. However, there are many times when a tank may need to use a cooldown for themselves, which then "wastes" the raid cooldown at a time where only they are taking damage. Since the end of Ulduar, the developers have been trying to tell tanks to use our cooldowns when we feel we need them, and not necessarily matching up with a certain event. This 4set basically indicates that they are going to change encounter design in order to need those cooldowns for the raid at certain intervals. Furthermore they are indicating to us that we will need at least 2 raid cooldowns to counter certain boss abilities "easily". This is not to say we will "need" them, but that their availability will greatly help at least heroic progression.

When we look at the cooldowns specifically, Shield Wall basically becomes a DG/PW:B with a 20% damage reduction. Divine Guardian retains its strength but now is available more than Shield Wall. Frenzied Regeneration will need to be looked at if bears want to retain it being glyphed or being able to heal the raid with a touch of a button. Giving a 50% potency Vampiric Blood to the raid every 60 seconds, just seems completely pathetic when compared to the other three tanks usage of the ability. In all honesty, if they are going to give a generic raid cd to everyone, it might as well have been dropped onto everyone's 40% damage reduction ability. I like the differences, but Vampiric Blood, whether it be glyphed or unglyphed is just a really weak raid cd to tie this too. It probably would have been better if the 4 set linked AMS instead.

As for hunter 2pc, you're overrating it, as is most the internet at the moment. The current rotations being proposed on various forums may be more "focus efficient", as in they don't cap on focus and waste it, but they are -lower- DPS rotations than what are currently being used, that just happen to chew through focus faster.

I can see that it will effect rotations. I would say that when you are getting dbl the normal return on your focus generators, that you would not choose to be as "efficient" as you say. Plus with the 30% haste from 4 piece this opens up a lot of potential to weave hard cast Aimed Shots into the rotation as some players with enough haste are already doing. I still believe that both set bonuses combined will be extremely powerful.

All in all, I am disappointed with the 2 piece bonuses. I had expected more of the same type of 2pieces as t12 which gave us a damage bonus without a fundamental change in rotation or playstyle. Some of these bonuses do that, but a lot of them will change how we play overall.

[FailureMidgard]

Yes, there are times that the tank and the raid would appreciate having a cooldown at the same time. This is one of the reasons DG does not work for both the tank and the raid. I can see this being meaningful. However, there are many times when a tank may need to use a cooldown for themselves, which then "wastes" the raid cooldown at a time where only they are taking damage. Since the end of Ulduar, the developers have been trying to tell tanks to use our cooldowns when we feel we need them, and not necessarily matching up with a certain event. This 4set basically indicates that they are going to change encounter design in order to need those cooldowns for the raid at certain intervals. Furthermore they are indicating to us that we will need at least 2 raid cooldowns to counter certain boss abilities "easily". This is not to say we will "need" them, but that their availability will greatly help at least heroic progression.

I do agree that it seems odd to balance around, but at the very least, it's the last tier of the expansion, so it'll be obsolete come a new tier, rather than a problem of a required old set bonus for new content. In the end, I think it's interesting and I like it when players have to make meaningful decisions during play (or planning ahead of time). I think it's the #1 thing that sets a good player apart from a bad, and I guess I like bonuses like this due to that.

When we look at the cooldowns specifically, Shield Wall basically becomes a DG/PW:B with a 20% damage reduction. Divine Guardian retains its strength but now is available more than Shield Wall. Frenzied Regeneration will need to be looked at if bears want to retain it being glyphed or being able to heal the raid with a touch of a button. Giving a 50% potency Vampiric Blood to the raid every 60 seconds, just seems completely pathetic when compared to the other three tanks usage of the ability. In all honesty, if they are going to give a generic raid cd to everyone, it might as well have been dropped onto everyone's 40% damage reduction ability. I like the differences, but Vampiric Blood, whether it be glyphed or unglyphed is just a really weak raid cd to tie this too. It probably would have been better if the 4 set linked AMS instead.

To start with, unglyphed Shield Wall will be 20% raid CD on a 2min cd, aka exactly equal to DG. IF you opt to have shield wall be 60% total (30% raid), THEN it's less available than DG. So for a fight like Domo, you may want to unglyph and use every phase...for another fight you may want to keep it glyphed, etc. In any case, I just think it makes it require more thought, which I like. I agree Vamp Blood seems weak, but the druid one seems kinda weak too to me.

I can see that it will effect rotations. I would say that when you are getting dbl the normal return on your focus generators, that you would not choose to be as "efficient" as you say. Plus with the 30% haste from 4 piece this opens up a lot of potential to weave hard cast Aimed Shots into the rotation as some players with enough haste are already doing. I still believe that both set bonuses combined will be extremely powerful.

The 4pc hunter bonus depends entirely on the specifics of the mechanic. Arcane Shot is a bad shot at high gear levels. If we were looking at a set bonus on 359 gear, that 4pc would be okay because gear levels would be lower. The fact we're looking at a minimum of 384 ilvl gear means we're not looking at low gear levels, even the "casuals" that are in 365ish ilvl now will be able to get this bonus at 384+ ilvl. They will have similar if not higher stats (crit/haste) to what I currently have, even if my gear is damn good right now. Looking at my last Baleroc kill:

Aimed Average: 32054noncrit, 68081 crit. 1.9sec cast, 50 focus.
Arcane Average: 10679noncrit, 21921 crit. 1.0sec GCD, 22 focus.
Auto Average: 5944noncrit, 12317 crit.

Each Aimed Shot has an opportunity cost of roughly 1 auto. So compare 2 arcanes+1auto to 1 aimed. Noncrit that's 32054 vs 27338. That's ignoring the fact that Aimed is actually faster by .1 sec (and gets faster with Lust, RF, Zerking, or Domo/Rag trinket procs). But this is ignoring other things too. Each arcane shot crit actually gives ~2.5k noncrit (or 5k crit) worth of pet damage (Actually on a 3 sec cd, so back to back Arcane Shot crits, or even 2 crits separated by a single shot lose the entire benefit). Each Aimed Shot crit gives this same amount of damage, and also gives 26551 worth of extra damage in bleed (counting mangle). Assuming a ~50% crit rate, this puts us at (giving arcane shot every possible benefit):

Aimed Shot x2 = 32054 + 68081 + 26551 + 3750 = 130436, 100 focus, 3.8sec ; 1304dpf, 34325dps.
Arcane Shot x4, Auto x2 = 10697x2 + 21921x2 + 5944 + 12317 + 2500 + 5000 = 90997, 88 focus, 4.0sec ; 1034dpf, 22749dps.

The DPF and DPS are just substantially lower than using Aimed Shot.

In any case, the 2 piece bonus is solid, because it will allow for more Aimed Shots, I'm not going to say it isn't, and I'm too lazy to model exactly how much of a DPS increase it will be. In an 8 second period, we get ~40 focus passive regen, and will get 18 per steady with bonus. We have to spend 2.6 sec every 8 to keep up ISS, that puts us at 76 focus gained. Adding a 3rd steady bumps that up to 92 focus, 4th steady is 110 focus. 94 of that is used for Chim + 1 Aimed (or 16 is being wasted). We've now spent ~8.1 seconds. Admittedly Chim is a slightly longer cooldown than that. Without said set bonus, we'd be 36 focus lower, or 20 short of what we needed. Assuming we can make up the 4 focus, maybe it's 1 extra aimed per 16-20 seconds best case scenario. This aimed replaced 1.5 steadies, using my numbers and a 50% crit rate, that's +63343 dmg from the aimed, and we lose out on 9130 from auto and 17821 from 1.5 steady or 26951 dmg, netting us 36392 dmg over ~18 seconds, which is slightly over 2k DPS. A good hunter these days is pulling some 36k DPS, which makes this set bonus look pretty good at 5.5%, but I still feel I'm vastly overrating it in the numbers given thus far, as you won't make that perfect use of your focus (realize you need 50 focus to Aimed Shot, a lot of the time you may end up at 45 focus needing to go into your 2x Steady for ISS...with this new set bonus, you get back 61 focus in that time, rotting 6 focus (and I already assumed we magically got 4 focus from nowhere).

The more interesting thing here, in my mind, is the loss of T13 4pc, which is a 10% chance to get a free shot* from each Auto Proc. Based on my last Baleroc parse, I fired 113 steadies, which would have netted me 1017 focus. I fired 121 autos, which should have been 12 procs, at either 50, 94, or 72 focus each. This is due to the fact the proc isn't consumed until the shot hits the target, so if it procs and I do an Aimed>Chimera, I get -both- shots free (50 is assuming an Aimed Shot and assuming the set bonus worked properly). On Rag, you can actually get 2 Aimed+Chim free due to the travel time on shots/spells to hit him, fwiw.

So anyway, with just the free Aimed, it would have been 600 focus. With 72 focus per, it would have been 864 focus. With Chim/Arcane being the followup half and half, it would have been 996 focus. Furthermore, this set bonus does not waste focus near as much, as I'm fairly certain 10-20% of the focus gained from T13 2pc would have been lost, T13-4pc wastes very little (though does occasionally waste some). Basically, this 2pc everyone is going crazy over doesn't actually net us more focus than we have now in our current set.

Moving onto 4pc, as I said earlier, it really depends on the mechanic. If it functions like Warlock T12 4pc (5% procchance), it will be a DPS loss to use it on a Patchwerk-esque fight. On a movement fight (which is where Arcane Shot is actually used), if it procs while moving, the haste benefit is largely wasted as the only real good thing about it is Aimed Shot cast (which obviously doesn't work while moving - examples being World in Flames, Shannox moving back and forth, etc). On the other hand, firing an Arcane while dodging a lava line on Rhyolith, then being able to foot-plant a second later would be pretty nice. Even so, with the infrequency Arcane Shot is used, at 5% procrate, it'd be like 1 proc per fight at most, which is really quite lackluster in my personal opinion.
HOWEVER, if the 4pc is a 45sec ICD with a very high procrate, to the point I can choose when it goes up, it's quite powerful, good, and furthermore would make me happy because good players would get more use out of it than bad ones.

Sorry for the TLDR. I don't care if people don't read it...if you did read it, power to you!

[SamanosukeShiva]

that arcane with glyph?

[FailureMidgard]

that arcane with glyph?

Shoulda been RF/Arcane/Steady as that's generally what I run with these days (unless I messed up and had wrong glyphs in). FD puts my averages at 10860/22371 theoretical with full raid buffs, which is within reason based on the fact my sample sizes are a bit low. So seems safe to assume that I indeed am correct about what glyphs I had in. If you can reliably not arcane shot, Chim is obviously a better glyph, but even on Baleroc, I think Arcane does better just due to required mobility with Countdown/potential shard covering, etc.

[Meresgi]

Someone in guild said no 4.3 till December 30th or something in guild, anyone see any info to confirm that?

[vrumpt]

Dec 20th is when SWTOR launches. Expect 4.3 on that date or Dec 13th.

[CoronA1979]

^

[aurik]

Wow what a terrible launch date for a MMO.

I expect 4.3 sometime around the beginning of December, now that they slipped D3 to 2012. PTR any day now?

[niwaar]

I do agree that it seems odd to balance around, but at the very least, it's the last tier of the expansion, so it'll be obsolete come a new tier, rather than a problem of a required old set bonus for new content. In the end, I think it's interesting and I like it when players have to make meaningful decisions during play (or planning ahead of time). I think it's the #1 thing that sets a good player apart from a bad, and I guess I like bonuses like this due to that.



To start with, unglyphed Shield Wall will be 20% raid CD on a 2min cd, aka exactly equal to DG. IF you opt to have shield wall be 60% total (30% raid), THEN it's less available than DG. So for a fight like Domo, you may want to unglyph and use every phase...for another fight you may want to keep it glyphed, etc. In any case, I just think it makes it require more thought, which I like. I agree Vamp Blood seems weak, but the druid one seems kinda weak too to me.

The bear CD is actually pretty decent, given that the bear has the incoming rage to prop up the raid with the 30% max health they'd receive from an unglyphed FR. VB is just a plain bad ability as it is. As a raid cd in a 50% form, its just down right awful. Yes SW would basically = DG, but at least on my paladin I do not have to make a stupid choice with it. I agree with you when you say the difference between a good player and a bad player are these types of choices. However, this choice goes down in my book with other stupid "choice" we have to make as tanks. I simply do not believe that this is a decent choice to make in an encounter. They would have to design encounters with fairly predetermined bursts of damage to make these cd's worth wild. These types of encounters stopped being fun in the 3rd month of Ulduar.

Blizzard likes to make us make stupid choices as tanks. I point to Shield Block's synergy with Shield Slam and now the new Berserk = a mitigation cd. I just wish they would stop trying to change abilities through tier and change or add abilities period.

Not going to argue with the math on the Hunter stuff. I love my hunter but I am a tank at heart.

[FailureMidgard]

The bear CD is actually pretty decent, given that the bear has the incoming rage to prop up the raid with the 30% max health they'd receive from an unglyphed FR. VB is just a plain bad ability as it is. As a raid cd in a 50% form, its just down right awful. Yes SW would basically = DG, but at least on my paladin I do not have to make a stupid choice with it. I agree with you when you say the difference between a good player and a bad player are these types of choices. However, this choice goes down in my book with other stupid "choice" we have to make as tanks. I simply do not believe that this is a decent choice to make in an encounter. They would have to design encounters with fairly predetermined bursts of damage to make these cd's worth wild. These types of encounters stopped being fun in the 3rd month of Ulduar.

Blizzard likes to make us make stupid choices as tanks. I point to Shield Block's synergy with Shield Slam and now the new Berserk = a mitigation cd. I just wish they would stop trying to change abilities through tier and change or add abilities period.

Not going to argue with the math on the Hunter stuff. I love my hunter but I am a tank at heart.

I'm not sure I understand...for most all of FL tier, those 4pc tank things wouldn't even be choices, but would be amazing. The CDs are very worthwhile. Bethtilac P2 it's good for, Rhyolith P2 it's good for, Alysrazor ground it's good for, Domo Scorpion it's good for. Rag Seed explosions (+ ofc melee hits) it's good for. I think it's still a pretty solid bonus. I can definitely sympathize with not wanting to essentially lose a CD you have to support the raid, but I think there's a lot of overlap, in general. I'm not sure what in Ulduar you're referring to, but the idea of heavy raid dmg seems quite commonplace currently.

[The Stig]

Some none mathy comments from me on the classes, all in a tank perspective:

The Paladin 2 piece is extremely lol. I don't believe my Judgements ever do more than 10k damage even after full veng, but I haven't been paying attention lately. A 3k shield every 8 seconds? What's the point? Assuming bosses will be smacking me for 100k/hit, the new gear better make me do more damage than ever to compensate. I don't think 3k per 8 seconds is going to make much of a difference

Likewise, I don't think I usually do more than 10k damage with Revenge. I can see it critting sometimes for 15k or so, but not much more than that. But to be fair, Revenge happens a lot often than Judgement and I use it each time it's ready, and if the shields stack then the set won't be that bad.

DK 2 set is a ghetto Blood Tap. I trigger Blood Tap anyway when I get low, similar to the set bonus, so I can Death Strike my health back up. It might somewhat address the DKs suddenly drop way low issue, but still that assumes the DK in question will push Death Strike intelligently.

[Katlan]

feral cat 4 set is so terrible, god... especially for it being the last tier of the xpac. No way I'll be dropping the OP t12 2 set

[niwaar]

I completely agree, The tanking 2 set bonuses are just plain meh. They do one thing though. They indicate that the devs understand that with current threat mechanics the normal tank set 2 pieces needed to be different. We do not need 10% crit, or 20% damage, etc. on our damaging abilities to enhance our threat anymore. We need something that contributes to our mitigation or avoidance. The simple fact that at full vengeance both Revenge and Judgment arent doing much more than 15k. Making these absorb shields extremely lacking. The Blood and Bear bonuses on the other hand are head scratchers. Getting a free blood tap every 45 seconds is interesting, but overall non compelling. I'd much rather have something akin to "Runic Empowerment prioritizes Death, Unholy and Frost runes" just so I can use my damn blood runes instead of keeping up a damn blood just so it actually does that. The bear bonus is just plain stupid imo. I am really tired of them changing damage and threat abilities into mitigation ones. Make up your damn mind. Basically this gives bears the third cooldown they desperately need, yet on far too long a cooldown when compared to other tanks.

[Kaylia]

Some none mathy comments from me on the classes, all in a tank perspective:

The Paladin 2 piece is extremely lol. I don't believe my Judgements ever do more than 10k damage even after full veng, but I haven't been paying attention lately. A 3k shield every 8 seconds? What's the point? Assuming bosses will be smacking me for 100k/hit, the new gear better make me do more damage than ever to compensate. I don't think 3k per 8 seconds is going to make much of a difference

It's more like 12k right now I think, and it should go up to ~15k with the next tier of gears, for a total around 4500k/9sec (500hp/sec).

To tell the truth, it's not a terrible mitigation on its own, and hold its weight against most tier bonus we see

[Katlan]

Someone in guild said no 4.3 till December 30th or something in guild, anyone see any info to confirm that?

I expected this all along tbh. Figure its roughly 2 months away once the raid hits the PTR. Hopefully the raid and the 3 instances will go on the PTR at the same time, but knowing blizz the raid will come at least a week or two after the 5 man's. And w/SWTOR being released at the end of December they have even more reason to wait until early/mid December to release 4.3.

Blizz does this religiously when they are able time a major content patch around another mmo / big AAA title launch. I think they originally wanted to time 4.3 to be around D3's release. Surprised people thought we would be seeing it earlier then December.

[Guitarman]

If that's true, subs are going to crash, hard. There's really very little to do right now. People are clearing firelands in 2 hours.

[Katlan]

based on past PTR experience, nearly all of the raids have had 2 months, or close there to, of testing on the PTR.

Don't think blizz cares if people leave the game atm, since statistics show that nearly all, if not all, come back for each major content patch lol. And most of those people who stop playing still pay for that 1-2 months of downtime