[Warrior Priest] - Wrath Mastery Tree

[ThePollie]

Second verse, same as the first. This is a thread about the Wrath mastery tree for Warrior priests. It is not about Disciples of Khaine or their ability to play DPS-support. Try to leave them out of it. Second, this thread is not and will not be about buffing Wrath to the point that dedicated DPS classes become obsolete. That isn't going to happen.

I have been play-testing the Wrath spec for about 2 weeks, much to the ire of a number of players for the lack of usefulness. Or healing. I intend to edit the post in the future, if and when I come across new information. Serious discussions only, don't start arguments and make petty comments like some of you have in the Grace thread.

I'll be honest, I despise this mastery, as it is. Giving Wrath a proper go has been an exhausting marathon filled with hateful messages and mockery from both sides. No survivability outside of a 1v1, no meaningful utility, mediocre damage, no CC break, no gap closer. You can't survive without a dedicated Guard-bot or incompetent enemies, and you don't do enough to warrant a guard.

M.A.D (Multiple Attribute Dependence)

Like Grace, Wrath suffers from the lack of focus in our gear sets. This is made worse by the fact that our damage is further split between physical and spirit. We need a lot of strength to keep our damage at reasonable levels, weapon skill to penetrate armour, with the omnipresent fact that weapon skill has no affect on attacks like Soulfire.

Though this remains a problem, I trust that the developers will have this resolved in due time, and have nothing further to say on the matter.

Compensation of Wrath.

The difference between Salvation and Grace is positioning and damage. Grace gives up the security of the back-line for the ability to contribute to damage and to have better positioning for certain Morale abilities. Wrath gives up a great deal of Grace's survivability and group-support, while gaining only a small portion of extra damage. Damage it has difficulty even making use of, because of its massive lack of survivability and ability to stick to a target.

Sigmar's Radiance, with my current gear set, deals 417 damage and heals for 50%+306 health in an AoE of 100 feet.. This averages to 400-500 health restored per global cool down.

Bludgeon, Wrath's filler attack, deals 417 damage. It has no innate armour penetration, AoE damage, debuff, or snare attached to it. It is, in every way, inferior.

Hammer of Sigmar, Wrath's execution attack, deals 384 damage or 588 if the target is below 50% health, with a cool down of 10 seconds. Over all, it is fairly lackluster. My current auto-attack damages nearly as much as this ability does.

Sigmar's Vision, Grace. Mentioned because this ability often hits almost as hard as Hammer of Sigmar, with half the cool down, no requirement for health to be below 50%, and applies a 10% parry buff to the defensive target.

Castigation, I have nothing bad to say about this ability. 253 damage, 405 over 10 seconds, while reducing a target's initiative by 72. It is solid, good for supporting allies.

Soulfire, Wrath mastery AoE attack. On paper, this attack looks fairly good. In practice, I have grown to hate it. 678 Spirit damage over 9 seconds, 30 feet around yourself when cast, 2 second cast time. And it's that cast time that routinely cripples this ability. I see this ability pushed back so much, that I often can't even get it to cast before I'm killed. When I actually manage to get the ability to cast, the damage is fairly disappointing, assuming it isn't blocked/parried. Yes, it can be parried. Somehow.

Really, Soulfire is just a damage-padder.

Absence of Faith, applies a 25% incoming heal debuff to the target for 10 seconds, 20 second cool down. I'm not the first to mention how laughable this skill is. This ability simply isn't worth the mastery point, but our tactics are not great, so I usually take it anyway as there is little else worth taking.

Divine Assault, while a Grace skill, is usable by Wrath. It is one of the only things that gives us a remote ability to avoid being killed. Though the lack of mastery points leaves this ability often only healing enough to counter the damage of a single DPS, and will hurt our damage while we use it. Between interrupts and blocks/parries, even then it often can't save us. More often than not, it just delays me getting killed.

Tactics

Repent, mentioned because of all the outcry over the recent buff. It doesn't save Wrath, at all. The amount of self-heal you lose during the switch is too severe, even an AoE Detaunt does little to help you without a lot of support from the team, which begs the question why you aren't Guarded. While Grace could use their healing to outpace the 50% less damage, Wrath can only use Divine Assault, which is not nearly as strong outside of Grace. Outsde of a 1v1, Divine Assault serves only to delay your death a few seconds. As they also do not have Grace's wounds buff, their ability to survive burst attacks is even lower still.

Guilty Soul. Any critical hit by a Wrath skill inflicts 789 spirit damage over 9 seconds, healing the defensive target for any damage dealt. Overall, it's a tactic that can be incredibly random. A lucky multi-crit with Smite can yield potentially 600 health/damage-per-second, or you may not manage a crit for some time and lose out on damage and healing. Worse, this ability does nothing if you are critting often enough to refresh it before a damage tick. Soulfire also does not proc this effect, making Smite the only reliable means to use it, assuming you can crit multiple people with it.

No option to use Brute Force. Our gear misplacing almost 100 points in a stat we can't readily use isn't bad enough without us not having a tactic option for 128 strength. I have seen Slayers with close to 1000 strength, while I have to struggle to obtain 600. The result is that we don't hit nearly as hard, while still lacking Grace and Salvation's healing, and are just as easily killed in a group setting. For the sake of survival, I tend to forsake strength even more, which leaves me with less damage than Grace, for the sake of not being killed immediately.

Divine Fury. +25% damage dealt, -20% on Cast-heals. This is mentioned because, like Grace, our damage is too low to forsake this tactic. It is absolutely mandatory.

Resource expenditure.

Right now, Wrath has far more RF than it can possibly spend. Without abilities like Touch of the Divine and Sigmar's Shield to use it, the resource is largely wasted. Yes, you can use Divine Assault and Healing Hand, but you ultimately can't get rid of it unless you're deliberately wasting it. Though Grace technically has the same issue, as Sigmar's Shield is not currently worth using, they will have better means to use RF once it is fixed. Wrath has nothing in its tree to spend RF with, only AP.

Healing Hand costs 30 RF, Divine Assault costs 25/per second, 75 in total. You can easily cast HH on two tanks, a DPS and yourself, and then chain into DA for further healing, without issue. Without means to spend it, Wrath can use DA every time it comes off cool down without end.

Positioning.

Much like Grace, Wrath suffers from a lack of mobility and the ease at which it can be snared and left out of the fight. While Purify can be used to cleanse snares, there are more than enough snares, roots, and DoTs to bury them under to ensure you can never cleanse them fast enough, if at all. Resolute Defenses, though nice, doesn't help much. Too much of a cool down, only works if used before the CC ruins you, and further hurts this spec by taking up 10 RR in it instead of something else.

Possible solutions.

For Soulfire, its cast time needs to be outright removed. It's the only problem I have with this ability. A 6 second cool down would keep it in check. The damage could be increased, or the length of time it takes to deal that damage reduced.

Absence of Faith needs its debuff increased to 50%. I've heard this said a thousand times. 25% makes little difference without a lot of coordinated focus from a premade, which won't have Wrath with them anyway.

Guilty Soul isn't too bad, it just needs a trait to prevent it from being refreshed. Until then, it remains a tactic that can suddenly cease to work because you're getting (un)lucky with critical hits. It could be made to proc off any Wrath ability, instead of just Direct attacks, which would help Wrath with both damage and survivability.

Once we have a properly itemized armour set, we may not actually need a Brute Force style tactic. Though, granted, we already have one mandatory tactic, possibly a second with guilty soul/fanaticism/hastened divinity, I'm not even sure we could find room for it if we had it.

I'm unsure what to do with Bludgeon or Hammer of Sigmar. Both of their damage is disappointing.

[Scottx125]

Haven't played wrath but if going by my Grace experience and reducing survivability and increasing DPS slightly is a notion to go by, it must suck. Now the survivability should be less as it should deal DPS close to that of mainstream DPS classes, and should receive something to close the gap with the enemy such as a lunge ability.

[Simmox]

and now you may understand what i was getting at in my previous Grace post about divine strike.
the removal of DS crippled Wrath in live and made them very rare indeed.not that they were much chop without specific gear anyway.

Soulfire is a lame duck for sure,im sure it was instant cast once but cant be sure of that.

[ThePollie]

and now you may understand what i was getting at in my previous Grace post about divine strike.
the removal of DS crippled Wrath in live and made them very rare indeed.not that they were much chop without specific gear anyway.

Soulfire is a lame duck for sure,im sure it was instant cast once but cant be sure of that.

I had an idea earlier about a way to give Wrath both support to his team and personal durability.

Something like Divine Strike, but instead of health restored, an absorb shield on himself and any ally within about 15 feet. I'd have it cost Righteous Fury, personally. Wrath already burns AP quickly, as is, but is without a good way to spend RF.

[Bignusty]

-Soulfire this abilitie is just useless this casting time can be interrupt you lose survivality need to be delete or make it like an abiltie hit to do some spirit dmg for example

-Tactic if aoe detaunt staying like that make a new one whit buff dodge and disrupt

-Make our snare instant.

-Next our heal debuff make it 50% - 25% its just a joke.

-Hammer of Sigmar its not for now because no gear not enough Ws strengh ... But its a nice finisher dmg dealer.

-Guilty Soul ... Never used on paper that can be usefull but some other tactic are more important.

[Scottx125]

and now you may understand what i was getting at in my previous Grace post about divine strike.
the removal of DS crippled Wrath in live and made them very rare indeed.not that they were much chop without specific gear anyway.

Soulfire is a lame duck for sure,im sure it was instant cast once but cant be sure of that.

I had an idea earlier about a way to give Wrath both support to his team and personal durability.

Something like Divine Strike, but instead of health restored, an absorb shield on himself and any ally within about 15 feet. I'd have it cost Righteous Fury, personally. Wrath already burns AP quickly, as is, but is without a good way to spend RF.

Problem with this is that wrath is a DPS spec, its not really focused on helping the team. Compared to salvation which is all about helping your team, and grace which is sort of a balance between the two.

[ThePollie]

-Soulfire this abilitie is just useless this casting time can be interrupt you lose survivality need to be delete or make it like an abiltie hit to do some spirit dmg for example

-Tactic if aoe detaunt staying like that make a new one whit buff dodge and disrupt

-Make our snare instant.

-Next our heal debuff make it 50% - 25% its just a joke.

-Hammer of Sigmar its not for now because no gear not enough Ws strengh ... But its a nice finisher dmg dealer.

-Guilty Soul ... Never used on paper that can be usefull but some other tactic are more important.

Removing the cast time would do a lot to make this ability viable, but I'm curious about a more direct attack with Spirit damage. I'm not so sure about making our snare instant, if by that you mean not needing the target being Cursed to work. Though it would help with mobility, as someone can run before you can hit with both attacks.

Unless Hammer scales dramatically with Strength at higher levels, I don't see it making the difference. Even with 740 strength, Bludgeon hits for roughly 360 damage, Hammer at <50% targets averages 600. While it is extra damage, it's hardly a 'finisher'. I don't want a huge buff to this ability, maybe not even one to its damage. Attaching a debuff or buff of some kind would offer Wrath some utility to the team.

Guilty Soul has the potential to be nice, but its crippled by its own mechanic and the fact Warrior priests have too many mandatory tactics.

Problem with this is that wrath is a DPS spec, its not really focused on helping the team. Compared to salvation which is all about helping your team, and grace which is sort of a balance between the two.

Except that Wrath has nothing to allow it to even do that job. Wrath has no gap closer to get to a target, no CC break or immunity outside of Morale abilities to stick to the target, and no utility to disable a target. Beyond that, the damage itself isn't particularly great. Granted, the new gear set will improve that, but I doubt expect to start seeing Wrath outperform a White Lion.

Even in its DPS mastery, Wrath is still a team supporter. It may not be as focused in that as Grace and Salvation are, but it's still going to be part of our role. Even without Grace mastery, Divine Assault on a carefully chosen target can provide quick healing for an ally. An unattended Squig or Daemon summon, a Spirit-debuffed enemy, etc. Guilty Soul could be used to heal allies, not just yourself.

[ThePollie]

Administrative request - Move thread to appropriate class forum section.

[Scrilian]

The Hammer of Wrath could have its cooldown reduced from 10 to 5. This will make it a desired ability and better fit the rotation of Wrath.

[Khazlin]

After Dual Wield DoK missed out on the recent AoE detaunt balance change that the WP received, on the basis that they are thought to be stronger, it concerns me that posts like these are limited exclusively to Warrior Priests. It seems that such a justification is purely a result of a lack of discussion specifically about the DPS DoK, even though the class faces almost identical issues to 2H WP. So why aren't we discussing both at once?