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Q u o t e:


Then why don't you do that (stack paladins) now when you can mitigate 40% raid wide damage when you want (assuming a bubble)? I don't see how this change makes the ability more attractive.

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The answer to this, good sir, is because you can't chain it.

Here is the situation the community is looking at:

1. Stack Paladins, place one in every group, and split the groups so that group one has four and all others contain only three members.
2. The smaller group size means that the duration of Divine Sacrifice has a greater chance of reaching the maximum because it is less likely to reach both limits.
3. Rotate accordingly. Six Paladins could maintain the raid wide buff for a total minute, and because it specifically IS NOT raid wide, they don't need to worry about the gib, thereby not having to worry about using Divine Shield at the same time.

GC, you seem to have forgotten that most raiding Paladins do not currently consider Divine Sacrifice to have a 2 minute cooldown, although that is exactly what is listed. Instead, the ability has a 5 minutes (4 minutes with Sacred Duty) cooldown, simply because it cannot be used safely without Divine Shield. This length in cooldown is likely what limits the abuse.

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Q u o t e:


You can lose either vindication (Zero DPS gain) and either Imp. BoM or Pursuit of Justice. One of those two plus vindication and all you lose out on is 3 points out of SotP.

It's a very small DPS loss. 300 DPS (assuming you're the best ret in the world), versus 20% damage reduction on the raid.

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having tried this 9 percent less dmg on our seal hits and judgements is more than a simple "300" dps loss. Also giving up PoJ is more of a dps loss than most people realize given how much movement there is on certain fights.

Here, let's use examples.

Burning Inferno
Instant
Burning Inferno inflicts 7800 to 8200 (8000 average) Fire damage every 1 sec for 5 sec to all friendly targets. The Burning Inferno is caused by Incinerate Flesh not being removed before the duration expires. Incinerate Flesh is removed after absorbing 30000 healing.
(we're assuming someone screwed up and the Burning Inferno was unavoidable for now)

Example Character = Holy paladin, raid buffed 24,000 hp.

Scenario 1
Divine Sacrifice on Live. Holy paladin pops Divine Shield + Divine Sacrifice when Burning Inferno goes off. Divine Sacrifice prevents 160,000 damage (10man) or 400,000 (25man). There is an additional 5 seconds in which everyone takes 40% less damage.

Scenario 2
Divine Sacrifice on PTR. Holy paladin is in normal raid group and pops Divine Sacrifice - the effect will end when she has transferred 48,000 damage to herself, or when she drops below 4,800 hp.

1st second: Paladin takes 6,400 damage from Burning Inferno + 7680 (1,920 * 4) from DivSac. HP = 9920.
2nd second: Paladin takes 6,400 damage from Burning Inferno + 7680 (1,920 * 4) from DivSac. Dies from simultaneous damage.
3rd-10th second: raid takes full damage.

Scenario 3
As Scenario 2 but paladin is getting heal bombed.

1st second: 7680 (1,920 * 4) damage transferred via DivSac. Damage cap = 40,320.
2nd second: 7680 (1,920 * 4) damage transferred via DivSac. Damage cap = 32,640.
3rd second: 7680 (1,920 * 4) damage transferred via DivSac. Damage cap = 24,960.
4th second: 7680 (1,920 * 4) damage transferred via DivSac. Damage cap = 17,280.
5th second: 7680 (1,920 * 4) damage transferred via DivSac. Damage cap = 9,600.

Total damage prevented by 20% raid-wide DR so far = 80,000 (10man) or 200,000 (25man).

So after Burning Inferno ends, the damage pool from Divine Sacrifice has 9,600 points remaining while the raid-wide 20% DR can still go on for another 5 seconds. These assumes the paladin was getting heal bombed and no one else in the paladin's party was getting damaged.

Scenario 4
As Scenario 3, but paladin is in a group with the MT and someone got Legion Flame.

1st second: 3000 (tank hit for 10k) + 1999 (Legion Flame) + 7680 damage transferred via DivSac. Damage cap = 35,321.
2nd second: 1999 (Legion Flame) + 2306 (Legion Fire) + 7680 damage transferred via DivSac. Damage cap = 23,336.
3rd second: 1999 + 0 (pro player isn't standing in fire anymore) + 7680 damage transferred via DivSac. Damage cap = 13,657.
4th second: 3000 (tank hit for 10k) + 1999 + 0 + 7680 damage transferred via DivSac. Damage cap = 978.

Although it's possible that simultaneous actions will allow the 20% raid-wide DR absorb damage for the 5th second, for all intents and purposes the Holy paladin's Divine Sacrifice will peter out, resulting in a loss of 16,000 (10man) or 40,000 (25man) damage prevention of the last tick of Burning Inferno.

Scenario 5
Divine Sacrifice on PTR. Holy paladin is in Group 8 with a rogue with Feint on his bars and pops Divine Sacrifice - the effect will end when she has transferred 19,200 damage to herself, or when she drops below 4,800 hp.

1st second: paladin takes 6,400 damage + 960 (8000*0.5*0.8*0.3) from DivSac. HP = 18,560.
2nd second: paladin takes 6,400 damage + 960 from DivSac. HP = 11,200.
3rd second: paladin takes 6,400 damage + 960 from DivSac. HP = 3,840.

Divine Sacrifice shuts off after the last 960 damage is transferred, but it already lasted longer than the poor paladin in the full group in Scenario 2 who outright died in two seconds. Of course, our paladin here will bite the dust in the 4th second from the DoT, but in any case, it would be a lot more reasonable to say the paladin in this scenario would be capable of solo-healing herself until Burning Inferno wore off, and then still have practically no chance Divine Sacrifice would fall off before the duration expired.

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Q u o t e:


Because before you didn't need a pally in a specific group. Now stacking Pally's bring huge benefits (more than before). Just keep the Pally above 10% HP, and put 1 in each group... BAM. Huge damage reduction.

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Umm...no. Right now, you could put 5 pallys in one group and chain raidwall for 40% avoidance for almost a minute...or you could split them up...or you could put them in their own groups. It doesn't matter. What matters is those pallies have Forebearance and their bubble is down. For a healer, that bubble and lack of forebearance is more useful.

If your guild needs 40% raidwall for 1min to complete an encounter you are not really ready for it, but grats. This new version allows paladins to keep that bubble and not have forebearance. A 20% raidwall is not as gamebreaking as 40%, but because each paladin is free to use it without reprecussions or debuffs (outside the dps loss for ret pally) it might allow 4 healers instead of 5 if those raidwalls are timed for high dmg output times of the encounters. WIth only a 2min CD, they can be used twice in a 5min encounter...with 6 pallys, thats 40% of the encounter at 20% less dmg - likely the 40% that is the most difficult on healers.

We still don't know ICC encounter design, but I never doubt creative use of game mechanics to figure out a way to abuse this without a forebearance-like debuff.

EDIT: Just curious - on PTR what happens if two pallys are using this at the same time and in same group?...different groups? Does the 20% stack additively or multiplicatively or does the additional 20% just go unused?

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Q u o t e:


having tried this 9 percent less dmg on our seal hits and judgements is more than a simple "300" dps loss. Also giving up PoJ is more of a dps loss than most people realize given how much movement there is on certain fights.

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I'm not advocating giving up PoJ.

On a single target fight, like NRB, here's a link to the best DPS for a ret paladin:
http://www.wowmeteronline.com/combat/detail/227183126#damageout

33% of their damage was from Seal/judgment of Vengeance. If you reduced it by 9%, that means that they'd lose around 2.97% of their DPS.

Assuming generously that DPS scales very well in the next patch, and you do 10,000 DPS, a 2.97% DPS loss would mean . . . around 300 DPS.

I like that change a lot. Good work GC.

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Q u o t e:
I'll try to explain this all.

The old (3.2) model of "raid wall" where you get to essentially Shield Wall your entire raid by bubbling to avoid the excessive damage was overpowered and we were increasingly starting to balance around it.

The new (PTR) model is that Diving Sacrifice applies to the party, not raid. It can absorb 40% of your health x your party size. If you are in a party of 5, it will redirect damage to you that is taken by the party up to a max of 200% of your health. If you are in a party of 2, it will redirect damage to you that is taken by the party up to a max of 80% of your health. If you take enough damage to drop you below 20% of your health, the spell is cancelled.

Divine Guardian reduces damage taken by the raid by 20% for up to 10 sec when you cast Divine Sacrifice. The damage reduction isn't directly related to the redirected damage any longer, except that it stops when Divine Sacrifice stops because you have absorbed too much damage or dropped your own health too low. (I understand the current PTR may not have DG stopping when DS stops.) The talent still affects Sacred Shield as a secondary effect.

Whether you bubble or not will not change the amount absorbed. If you do not bubble, then both DS and DG will cancel as soon as it drops you below 20%. We added this cap because we thought the self-gib feature of using DS / DG without bubbling was weird. However, the spell can still kill you if the damage is quick and massive enough. If you have DS up when a party member gets hit by a Mimiron rocket, you'll die before the 20% cancellation kicks in.

Example: Kallee the paladin has 50,000 health. She has the DG talent. When she uses DS in a full raid, she can absorb 20% of incoming damage to the raid until one of three things happen: 1) 10 sec expire, 2) she absorbs 100,000 damage total (from damage to her party only), 3) she drops below 10,000 health.

Yes, this means that in some situations you could get the full 15 sec duration if some part of the raid is taking damage but the paladin's party is not. The more typical case is a situation in which the whole raid is taking damage.

A related significant change is that all sources of damage should now count towards Divine Sacrifice. Before there were some situations, Twin Val'kyr for instance, where the paladin wouldn't take damage or wouldn't take enough damage from the redirection.

P. S. We have been trying to move more abilities from the party to the raid, but some just don't scale nicely and are either overpowered in a 5-player group or underpowered in a 25-player group. We may implement some kind of scaling mechanism for Cataclysm or just accept that a few abilities need to remain party only.

P. P. S. This has changed a couple of times on the PTR already and it's possible this is not the final implementation, so confusion is totally understandable.

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This is bad design. I don't mean that in the sense that the ability is broken. I mean that in the sense that this is so convoluted and byzantine, it's honestly hard to keep track of.

Try explaining how this all works to a fresh raider. Between the damage absorption, the triggers for ending, the exceptions to the trigger (fast big damage) the secondary effect of 20% mitigation that disappears at one of the said triggers, this is a poorly designed talent.

Step back, forget about your goal, and read the above. Ask yourself if this is the kind of game design you want to employ. Ask yourself how easily you can explain it to someone who doesn't get it. Ask yourself why it took so many words for you to try to explain it.

On top of that, you have three abilities in play here: DIVINE Shield, DIVINE Sacrifice, and DIVINE Guardian. There is a problem with wording there alone, as half the words in all three talents are the same.

Try telling someone a story about three people. The first person is named Steven Smith. The second person is Steven Jones. The third person is Steven Clark. See how well people keep up. You can make it a simply story.

Just poor design all over the place on this. Scrap it or start over, but you are going to introduce a LOT of complexity with this design,and then encounter designing around it. And then people complaining because encounters are designed around it but they're not using it correctly and they think a fight is broken. Or the mechanic is broken.

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Q u o t e:
After reviewing this some more, we will probably end up changing it again. For example, we're not sure we could solve the case of the paladin who sits in a party with 4 players who are in the raid, but don't zone into the instance.

We might very well iterate on this a bit, but we're thinking something like this:

Divine Sacrifice -- Works like it does on the PTR.

Divine Guardian -- When you use Divine Sacrifice, your entire raid also takes 20% less damage for 6 sec. The main difference would be that DG always stays active even if DS hits its damage cap or paladin health cap. The shorter duration would hopefully keep it as situational ("Here comes the big blast") and not something paladins try and keep up as much as they can.

Not set in stone... as if anything ever is. :)

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I like that better. 6 seconds is long enough to make it viable for raid strategy but too short to consider stacking.

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Q u o t e:
Divine Sacrifice -- Works like it does on the PTR.

Divine Guardian -- When you use Divine Sacrifice, your entire raid also takes 20% less damage for 6 sec. The main difference would be that DG always stays active even if DS hits its damage cap or paladin health cap. The shorter duration would hopefully keep it as situational ("Here comes the big blast") and not something paladins try and keep up as much as they can.

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This sounds nice. If I'm reading it right, tanks could click off the DS effect but you'd still get the raid damage reduction. I'd spec into that.

I'm confused overall by this change...i thought blizzard wanted to eliminate "parties" from "raids"?

so will it be worth taking? (for prot, versus getting normal talents, or ret, versus getting aura mastery)

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Q u o t e:
I'm confused overall by this change...i thought blizzard wanted to eliminate "parties" from "raids"?

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I agree. Maybe it would be better to make it pick the four closest raid members, or the 4 raid members lowest on health or something. It would be better than using the 4 people that happen to be in your group.

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Q u o t e:
Does this change also reduce damage the paladin takes by 20%? This could potentially allow for another mitigation cooldown as well for pally tanks.

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Six seconds of 20% mitigation is hardly overpowered, not like 15 seconds would be.

A lot of people in this thread seem to be focusing on either ways to exploit the new ability or the fact that this is a nerf.

Neither of these things particularly concern me personally. Exploits get fixed and nerfs are usually for good reason.

My complaint is that the ability is too convoluted. I think the original version of this ability was unintuitive and hard to understand with a weird tool-tip and it has just gotten more and more complex and messy as time has gone on.

Also, the talent for it and its improvement is really early in the tree to be so.. messy. The earlier something is the more accessible and intuitive it should be for a new player.

I'll probably get yelled at here, but I think the whole thing needs a redesign. I always thought it would be really cool if paladins had a spell that involved "praying". Literally kneeling down and praying, like "the paladins kneels in prayer and becomes immune to area of effect damage while redirecting 20% of all damage taken by his raid to himself" or something, but that would cost DPS which would make the hardcore damage meter guys (who are the only players who bother to post) angry. Maybe the prayer could redirect the damage (up to a cap) at the paladins target, maybe even via a glyph.

Anyway, stupid suggestions aside I think the spell and ability design team should suffer the same limit the quest writers suffer "If you can't fit an accurate and thorough tooltip for this ability in XXX characters then you can't create that ability". This spell has become the Armor Penetration of Paladin abilities, thick, complex, unintuitive, and annoying to deal with.

Scrap DS/DG, move deflection into the prot tree where DS was, replace DG with a different talent that buffs SS to be useful to tankadins even if a holy paladin is in the raid, put a new talent in place of deflection in the ret tree that adds some offensive utility.

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Q u o t e:
Scrap DS/DG, move deflection into the prot tree where DS was, replace DG with a different talent that buffs SS to be useful to tankadins even if a holy paladin is in the raid, put a new talent in place of deflection in the ret tree that adds some offensive utility.

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What exactly would that get us? 5 more points we have to spend in prot? 5 more wasted points we would spend in ret anyways for threat? No thanks, leave deflection right where it is. And keep those grubby ret hands off my strength talent too!