Return of Reckoning

Posted: **Sat Dec 15, 2018 1:29 pm**

There were some good ideas and intentions behind the WP/DoK changes, but also some mistakes were made.
I'll split my opinions into multiple postings to avoid a single big wall of text.

First, the biggest mistake:

Shields = lower survivability!

Shields were given to melee WP/DoK to improve their survivability. Unfortunately, the opposite is the case. Survivability with 1h + shield is lower than it was with 2h hammer (or DoK dual wield).

I repeat: 1h + Shield --> survivability goes down!!

Why?

Simply because the shields we were given offer almost no defense at all. Their base block rating is about 1%, which is nothing! Shields give no armor bonus and no other additional stats whatsoever.

On the other hand, being forced to fight with 1h hammer lowers your damage output. And as a melee healer, damage = healing. Lower damage output results in lower healing. Because our ability to heal ourselves got gimped, we lost survivability. Our most important burst/self-healing ability (Divine Assault) became nearly useless. It was a true life-saver, now it's hardly worth using. I'm glad at least this is going to be addressed.

Another issue is the missing 10% parry (and block?) strikethrough we got from using 2h hammer. It's gone. When using 1h + shield, my attacks have a lower chance to actually land. If I get parried/blocked, I get zero heal. My melee heals not only became lower, they also became less reliable. That's another reason why Shield makes my survivability go down. The 1% block from shield doesn't compensate this AT ALL!

Wait wait ... isn't there a new skill to buff your shield block rate?

The new 10% block self buff ability would be all nice and such, if this weren't something that should have been a passive bonus on the new shields to begin with.

There is another problem when it comes to playstyle. Now I have to waste precious time and resources to buff myself, instead of healing my group. If my group (and/or myself) is in dire need of heals, I have to use healing abilities, there is no time for this self buff. Whenever my team is under pressure, I can either use Sigmar's Radiance and heal my entire group for about 800 hitpoints, or I can buff my own block rate and watch my group die. What would you do in this situation? Sure, you'd heal the group!

Remember, a grace spec WP has other buffs as well, Sigmar's Fist (str buff) and Sigmar's Vision (10% parry). Adding a third buff ability would cause them to waste like half their time buffing themselves.

But but but ... you can now spec into renown shield block % rate!

Sure I can. But if I do so, I can spend less renown points on parry or dodge/disrupt.
Some people apparently think you save renown points by using Block over the other two, because Block essentially works as Parry/Dodge and Disrupt

That's not true, because Block is twice as expensive to buy than Parry or Dodge/Disrupt.

For example, for 1 renown point I can get:
3% parry or 3% dodge/disrupt or 1% block

For a full investment (19 points) into either renown spec I can get:
18% parry or 18% dodge/disrupt or 10% block

Please note: Block only works against frontal attacks, Dodge/Disrupt also works against attacks from behind.

See? You don't save renown points by spending them into block. Your overall survivability doesn't go up by spending the points in block instead of parry + dodge/disrupt.

------ EDIT: -------
As of new Patch from Saturday, the healing value of Divine Assault got increased.
Unfortunately, the lowered healing from my most important skill, Sigmar's Radiance, remains the same.
The healing increase on Divine Strike is insignificant because you'll always want to use the better skill Sigmar's Radiance instead. The only ones who will use Divine Strike are wrath-spec WP who don't use the Grace of Sigmar tactic, thus get no increased heal (probably intended).

This change is at least a partly fix of the issues.
But still, my most important skill (Sigmar's Radiance) heals for less and is more likely to get parried/blocked (=less reliable)
----- /EDIT: -------

Suggestion:

Remove the block-rate buff skills Divine Warden/Blood Guard and simply give the WP/DoK shields more base block rating. 10% block would be fair, compared to what we lose from giving up 2hand or dual wield.

Posted: **Sat Dec 15, 2018 1:52 pm**

Snoxx wrote: Sat Dec 15, 2018 1:29 pm There were some good ideas and intentions behind the WP/DoK changes, but also some mistakes were made.
I'll split my opinions into multiple postings to avoid a single big wall of text.

First, the biggest mistake:

Shields = lower survivability!

Shields were given to melee WP/DoK to improve their survivability. Unfortunately, the opposite is the case. Survivability with 1h + shield is lower than it was with 2h hammer (or DoK dual wield).

I repeat: 1h + Shield --> survivability goes down!!

Why?

Simply because the shields we were given offer almost no defense at all. Their base block rating is about 1%, which is nothing! Shields give no armor bonus and no other additional stats whatsoever.

On the other hand, being forced to fight with 1h hammer lowers your damage output. And as a melee healer, damage = healing. Lower damage output results in lower healing. Because our ability to heal ourselves got gimped, we lost survivability. Our most important burst/self-healing ability (Divine Assault) became nearly useless. It was a true life-saver, now it's hardly worth using. I'm glad at least this is going to be addressed.

Another issue is the missing 10% parry (and block?) strikethrough we got from using 2h hammer. It's gone. When using 1h + shield, my attacks have a lower chance to actually land. If I get parried/blocked, I get zero heal. My melee heals not only became lower, they also became less reliable. That's another reason why Shield makes my survivability go down. The 1% block from shield doesn't compensate this AT ALL!

Wait wait ... isn't there a new skill to buff your shield block rate?

The new 10% block self buff ability would be all nice and such, if this weren't something that should have been a passive bonus on the new shields to begin with.

There is another problem when it comes to playstyle. Now I have to waste precious time and resources to buff myself, instead of healing my group. If my group (and/or myself) is in dire need of heals, I have to use healing abilities, there is no time for this self buff. Whenever my team is under pressure, I can either use Sigmar's Radiance and heal my entire group for about 800 hitpoints, or I can buff my own block rate and watch my group die. What would you do in this situation? Sure, you'd heal the group!

Remember, a grace spec WP has other buffs as well, Sigmar's Fist (str buff) and Sigmar's Vision (10% parry). Adding a third buff ability would cause them to waste like half their time buffing themselves.

But but but ... you can now spec into renown shield block % rate!

Sure I can. But if I do so, I can spend less renown points on parry or dodge/disrupt.
Some people apparently think you save renown points by using Block over the other two, because Block essentially works as Parry/Dodge and Disrupt

That's not true, because Block is twice as expensive to buy than Parry or Dodge/Disrupt.

For example, for 1 renown point I can get:
3% parry or 3% dodge/disrupt or 1% block

For a full investment (19 points) into either renown spec I can get:
18% parry or 18% dodge/disrupt or 10% block

Please note: Block only works against frontal attacks, Dodge/Disrupt also works against attacks from behind.

See? You don't save renown points by spending them into block. Your overall survivability doesn't go up by spending the points in block instead of parry + dodge/disrupt.

------ EDIT: -------
As of new Patch from Saturday, the healing value of Divine Assault got increased.
Unfortunately, the lowered healing from my most important skill, Sigmar's Radiance, remains the same.
The healing increase on Divine Strike is insignificant because you'll always want to use the better skill Sigmar's Radiance instead. The only ones who will use Divine Strike are wrath-spec WP who don't use the Grace of Sigmar tactic, thus get no increased heal (probably intended).

This change is at least a partly fix of the issues.
But still, my most important skill (Sigmar's Radiance) heals for less and is more likely to get parried/blocked (=less reliable)
----- /EDIT: -------

Suggestion:

Remove the block-rate buff skills Divine Warden/Blood Guard and simply give the WP/DoK shields more base block rating. 10% block would be fair, compared to what we lose from giving up 2hand or dual wield.

Absolutely this. I'm glad I am not the only one who feels this way.

As a melee healer, Grace should be considerably more tanky than salvation. Grace gives up it's ability to heal when not in melee range and also makes its self a target by being on the front line. As it stands, there is simply no compensation for it.

The 10% block is outclassed by salvation's willpower disrupt, as Grace will never access a decent block chance like tanks can due to gear.

As for the hybrid build... I don't see the reason to take half-measures on both aspects. If you're not running divine fury and fanaticism, then your lifetaps will be severely underperforming. Even if you don't, you lack willpower to make your casted heals worth the RF. Since you can only spend RF on one or the other, you may as well focus on one... so it is simply better to be pure salvation than be hybrid.

This is why i think Grace needs to be able to do something when it is not in melee without sacrificing any of its lifetap power. Something that fits the flavor of tanky shield frontline healer to really push the experience of grace. I really hope we get the HTL style pulsing heal that I suggested a few times... or something similar that allows us to do some non-melee healing without giving up our core lifetap effectiveness.

Posted: **Sat Dec 15, 2018 1:54 pm**

Next issue:

RF/SE resource pool management becomes near-impossible

With two new resource consuming abilities, and no improved ways to generate those resources, the resource management on grace WP and sacrifice DoK became near-impossible to manage.

Let me explain ...

RF (or SE for DoKs) management already was a difficult task before the new abilities were implemented.

Let's look at a simple typical melee WP "rotation":
- HoT yourself (costs 30 RF)
- use 2-3 melee skills (generate 50-100 RF)
- use Divine Assault (costs 75 RF)
- rinse and repeat

If you do the math, you can see how Divine Assault alone is draining the RF pool. If some of your RF-generating skills get parried/blocked (and you gain 0 RF), your RF pool will be empty very quick.

Keeping your RF pool filled was a permanent struggle, but it was fine. It was challenging but doable.

In the case of grace-spec WP, managing the RF pool became harder once Sigmar's Shield finally became a viable skill (again, thanks a lot @Devs). But Sigmar's Shield drains HUUUGE amounts of RF. Basically every time you use it (on a target who really needs it) your RF pool will be empty in an instant.

Add this to the math above, and you'll see how hard it already was to keep your RF pool at least half-full.

(I think sacrifice DoK should have less trouble with this, because they don't have a similar instantly-empty-resources skill like Sigmar's Shield and at the same time they have a better skill to quickly fill their SE pool: Pillage Essence!).

Now let's look at the new skills:

Sacrifice!/Blood of my Blood:

I assume this is supposed to be a desperate last-resort healing skill for when things go really wrong and you have to (almost) sacrifice yourself to save the group. It consumes a full 250 RF pool. Problem is, when you are desperate and things went really wrong, you don't have 250 RF. Your RF pool will be empty. Also, if you still had 250 RF available, why not use them to cast some group heals and have the same effect - without killing yourself?

Suggestion: Remove the RF/SE cost from this skill. Sacrificing your life is enough.

Divine Warden/Blood Guard:

Same issue here, the RF/SE cost is way to high for the effect. Full duration use will consume 250 RF/SE. Using the RF/SE for healing spells will probably heal more than a 10% defense buff will prevent. Only useful part is the root/snare immunity.

Suggestion: Why not replace it with a simple root/snare break or something. Should cost 25 or maybe 30 RF/SE, just like our cleanse ability (Purify/Patch Wounds).

Other suggestions about RF/SE management for grace WP/sacrifice DoK:

- put a tiny amount of RF/SE regeneration on shields
(if you refuse giving us better block rate, at least give us some RF/SE regen)

- allow Supplication/Blood Offering to be cast on the move when 1h + shield is equipped
(if you have trouble implementing this into your code, just add similar new skills that work while moving but "requires Shield")

- revert functionality of Sigmar's Shield back to the previous way, when it consumed 15 RF per second instead of 10 RF per incoming hit

Posted: **Sat Dec 15, 2018 3:57 pm**

i think SnB concept was seperation of dps and healing.
so 'i need dps to heal as melee healer' is not a case anymore.
just my opinion.

i think melee healers need more time to adapt to changes.

as a healer you need to avoid overhealing, that's waste of cast-time and resources.
also you have to pre-healing.
finding right moment between them is player's part.
it's management, of everything.
skill selection, targeting, resource, postion and awareness.

it's hard to play but
you can't buff skills because it's hard.

melee healers dive into front line and channel skills every CD while blocking most attacks...
who wants that, right?

it's time to gather more experience.

Posted: **Sat Dec 15, 2018 5:16 pm**

anarchypark wrote: Sat Dec 15, 2018 3:57 pm i think SnB concept was seperation of dps and healing.
so 'i need dps to heal as melee healer' is not a case anymore.
just my opinion.

i think melee healers need more time to adapt to changes.

as a healer you need to avoid overhealing, that's waste of cast-time and resources.
also you have to pre-healing.
finding right moment between them is player's part.
it's management, of everything.
skill selection, targeting, resource, postion and awareness.

it's hard to play but
you can't buff skills because it's hard.

melee healers dive into front line and channel skills every CD while blocking most attacks...
who wants that, right?

it's time to gather more experience.

The reason I posted here was because I was trying to gauge if there was anything significant I could do better in light of the fact that my output was abysmal.

I really like the changes now that the radiance tactic improves lifetap healing. I agree with reducing Grace damage completely.

After some discussion with guildies I can see that I'm not getting an accurate perspective because I am solo queueing scenarios where I just get hard trained with no support. Whenever I get some support and survive for longer than a few seconds, my throughput is very respectable.

I am going to get my RR up a bit and grab some domi gear then grab my pocket guard and see how it goes. I don't feel like theres anything else I can do alone though. I use AoE detaunt, manage buffs and try to take care with positioning as much as possible. I'm not an idiot with Grace but its still impossible in pug scenarios to actually do any significant healing while constantly being focused by 4+ mdps and 2+ RDPS

Despite this, I still feel that Grace needs something to do at range other than standing around like a lemon while salvation is busy doing the hard work. Whatever this is, it should not pertain to the healing output while in melee... in other words, I'm not asking for any more lifetap buffs. I just want to be useful while not in melee. As long as Grace does nothing at range, it will always be better to be salvation.

Posted: **Sat Dec 15, 2018 5:25 pm**

Can confirm...

New channeled skills draining 250 mechpoints over their duration is harsh. You have to slot 30RFSE/hit tactic to not be empty after that. Best you stand there with 90 points after channel...

Should probably reduce the cost to 150.

New sigmars shield cost is harsh too, but i think it's ok... this way it's a bit gimmicky to use and not an oh-****-button for every situation. Also here: 30RFSE/hit tactic is a must have. The buff does'nt end with empty resourcepoints so you can squeeze some heal out after tactic proc.

Other thing: too many buffs with too short duration... half of the time selfbuffing instead of healing feels clunky.

Edit: Overall it's really fun to play but min-maxing heal will always be backround healbot. And i don't offer significant more mitigation, more healing or cc in grace to justify the frontline healing. It feels like: here i stand and... well... do nothing what a true healer can't do. And they don't get hit all the time. Sure, sometimes people are dumb enough to dps me but for them there's really no reason to, so better punt away.

Posted: **Sat Dec 15, 2018 5:33 pm**

Wiede wrote: Sat Dec 15, 2018 5:25 pm Can confirm...

New channeled skills draining 250 mechpoints over their duration is harsh. You have to slot 30RFSE/hit tactic to not be empty after that. Best you stand there with 90 points after channel...

Should probably reduce the cost to 150.

New sigmars shield cost is harsh too, but i think it's ok... this way it's a bit gimmicky to use and not an oh-****-button for every situation. Also here: 30RFSE/hit tactic is a must have. The buff does'nt end with empty resourcepoints so you can squeeze some heal out after tactic proc.

Other thing: too many buffs with too short duration... half of the time selfbuffing instead of healing feels clunky.

I felt the same about the buffs. So many globals spent on buffing and not healing. I posted that up in my grace suggestion thread in the suggestion forum. It seems the General consensus is that they like buff management as a skill.

I would like fist and possibly vision to at least double buff like follow me lead... so you don't have to constantly keep swapping defensive target to yourself. If it was double buff it would most definitely be worth sacrificing a healing global to put it up and would feel way less clunky.

Posted: **Sat Dec 15, 2018 5:41 pm**

Or changing prayer of devotion (and dok heal aura) to something like "if i hit a target with a grace skill something buffs/heals my grp" so i can get some support out of my buff rotations.

E.g.
25% chance to buff my grp with the buff of the skill im using... 10% parry, 120 str (and tough with tactic), 10% block or sigmars shield (not op cause your resources). just making my buffs support my grp too...

Seems a little bit OP, but hey... while doing that in not healing anyone.

And biggest Problem... Dok doesnt have anything comparable...

Posted: **Sun Dec 16, 2018 12:33 am**

I feel like the auras are backwards somewhat. Salvation is the healing speciality and Grace is supposed to be a little more tanky? It almost seems like the auras would make more sense to be swapped so that Grace brings armor and salvation brings more healing.

Obviously that would aggravate the Grave viability problem as the armor prayer is not used due to armor potions being better. The prayer would need to stack with armor pots for it to not hurt Grace's viability even more.

Anything stacking with armor pots is a very large and controversial game mechanics change but to be honest the armor prayer is simply never going to be used in an organised setting otherwise. If it did stack with armor potions and was given to grace, it would actually increase Grace's viability considerably whilst maintaining Grace's identity as the tanky spec.

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2018 5:05 pm**

What's a good grace build with lets say RR70? Gear as well would be a lovely input.
Thanks in advance

Return of Reckoning

State of current Grace

Re: State of current Grace

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