Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Trauma and Paladins

I got a new mace from ICC tonight: [Trauma]. It replaced my mace from Ulduar.

It's rather underwhelming so far. The proc does like 0.6% of my healing.

According to Ghostcrawler:
Estimates of Bryntroll at 8 to 10% of dps seem exaggerated to us. Something at the 3 to 3.5% seems more typical. It should be eminently possible for healers to get 3 to 3.5% healing out of Trauma.

I'm not sure what data Ghostcrawler is seeing, but I get nothing close to this. And I'm usually healing tanks, so it should be hitting the melee DPS as well.

The worst part is that [Trauma] is pretty much the only upgrade for a healing paladin in ICC-25. The only other alternative is a sword with hit rating.

I hope Blizzard takes a look at this weapon and upgrades the proc effect for paladins.

As well, they really need to drop an alternative weapon type that paladins can use. The other healing classes get daggers and staves in addition to maces. Paladins can use caster swords, but Blizzard always seems to put hit rating on the swords, restricting the swords to the DPS casters.

Edit: I forgot to mention that in addition to being a lackluster proc, effect-wise, it also lacks flash, which is a very common complaint for healing effects. In comparison, [Nibelung] spawns Val'kyrs to smite your enemies for you! Why does healing never get the cool stylish effects?

18 comments:

  1. I believe druids are seeing a bit higher numbers (see Elitist Jerks - Restoration Itemization), more around 2%, but that's still far from GC's 3-3.5%.
    Atm the main culprits for low overall healing of this proc seem to be the 10y range and group restriction and these are things that could be tuned in the future. So don't give up hope just yet :)

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  2. > but Blizzard always seems to put
    > +hit on the swords, restricting
    > the swords to the DPS casters.

    Only warlocks and mages can use swords. Shadow priests, moonkins and elemental shamans can't.

    Maybe it's Blizzards way to give something to the cloth casters, because they can't hoard dps on the minimal bid spell power plate, mail or leather?

    And there are still more people using a hit spell power sword then there are people using spell power plate. And both has the same drop rate. :)

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  3. Well, I'm not saying "stop making caster swords". I'm saying if you make caster swords without hit rating and spirit, Holy paladins can use them in addition to warlocks and mages.

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  4. Yes, I did understand that.

    All dps caster can use daggers.
    All healer can use a mace.

    Blizzard knows that. Why are they creating no dagger with hit but a sword? It's like creating a dagger and putting "class: Mage Warlock" on it.

    And to stay more on topic. Nibelung also does not pull its weight. Especially since the spawn Valkyrs don't have any pet avoidance and only 12k hp. They die very fast to boss ae.

    But luckily there are 2 good 1h caster weapons for warlocks easily accessible, unlike Ulduar where it was a pain to get a caster weapon.

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  5. I think you're right, and they probably should just stop putting +hit on caster weapons. Let them be equally useful for dps or healers, and differentiate in the jewellry and other gear.

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  6. That was my question, Spinks. Should they?

    Sure. More people could use it.

    But the current T9 gear is incredible boring. Every item has the same amount of spa/int/sp. The amount of sta an item has is more or less directly coupled with the iLevel like it is for armor.

    It makes your gear efficent.

    It's boring.

    I hate it.

    I miss my green "of the shadow warth" wand which was better than epic drops.

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  7. @Kring:

    Agreed entirely. Efficiency is boring. Some of us saw we were getting into this at the end of vanilla when spellpower was being commonly realized as the best way to increase dps.

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  8. I agree with Rohan, no good weapon for holy paladin in ICC. I'll change my Val'anyr in Cataclysm.

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  9. Kring: Well, if the alternative is creating special drops that only one class/spec can use, then I'd go with the bland in preference.

    Or just provide a way for blacksmiths to reforge daggers into swords or vice versa (I'd love this!)

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  10. I think you're forgetting something. Unless your melee are in the same group as the tanks, they're not going to be affected by the proc. It's party-only.

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  11. For some reason, I prefer Swords to Maces on my Paladin. For Healing at least. For Melee I like the look of a 2h Mace > Sword >>> Axes.

    That said, I had no qualms taking the Polished Azuresong Mageblade from an Onyxia 25 kill. None of the DPS casters wanted it and it is an AMAZING piece for Holy Paladins - even with the +hit rating.

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  12. The resto shaman in my guild was arguing that Trauma was better than Val'anyr for all classes.

    This is good evidence that, for holy paladins, it is not. On my world of logs meters, the shield effect from Val'anyr is usually around 10-15%! (and that's why I'm always trying to get above 85% overhealing)

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  13. Keep in mind that we have only opened 2/4 wings of ICC not to mention arthas himself. Untill all the wings and drops are released it is hard to judge. There may be an awesome healing sword in which the proc is better suited for holy paladins. In fact I'm counting on it because the only tanking sword in in ICC 25 is absolutely terrible. Not to mention there isn't a single tanking shield in 25 man.

    Hard to make judgement calls like this when half the instance isn't out yet not to mention hardmodes.

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  14. The presence of hit rating on a caster sword need not deter paladins from rolling on it (especially since the Trauma proc is undoubtedly very poor for all but resto druids).

    Hit rating improves the chances of your judgements landing, and in fights that allow it, the chances of your melee swings connecting with the boss when using SoW/JoW.

    While it may not be optimal itemisation, hit isn't useless either.

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  15. What about the 10-man version of Trauma from Rotface, Lockjaw? Doesn't have a crappy proc and it has lower stats due to being only a level 251 mace, but it's still probably a solid upgrade from TotC. There's also Quel'dalar, Lens of the Mind which has pretty much perfect itemisation for a Holy Paladin, though again, it's only iLvl 251.

    Honestly the lack of weapons in ICC25 is annoying. I have a frost DPS offspec for my Death Knight for raid utility (our guild lacks a raiding enhancement shaman) so I'm always looking for slow, one-handed weapons. Of which there are *none* in ICC25 at the moment. I don't think Blizzard will have forgotten to add some decent weapons for all specs in ICC25, they must just be further into the instance than we can currently advance.

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  16. I STILL get angry over Lok in BWL-it was the only weapon upgrade (aside from the Hexxer in Troll Land) from my damn Aurastone Hammer...and in all our time in BWL, it dropped twice. Went to a priest and a druid, who had other weapons to choose from.

    Raaaaaeeeeeg.

    You'd think they'd learn better by now. :P

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  17. The proc sounds OK, but parses don't lie. I'd hate to worry about group structure just to work a proc.

    Meanwhile, I'll keep using my Frost Needle. Haste is sexy anyway. Plus it gives me a head start on a new Heroics gear set I'm building: +hit and +spirit with a side of Crusader Aura.

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  18. It's all because of Turning Tide dammit!

    Not many guilds can get Mortalis for it to be a viable upgrade for most raiding holy paladins

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