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DOK + WP .ab ex tips, tricks and FAQ

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Gobtar
Posts: 796

DOK + WP .ab ex tips, tricks and FAQ

Post#1 » Wed Nov 16, 2016 3:27 pm

Some of our core testers have had the added benefit of play testing this experimental change to fine tune it. I am creating this post as a one stop shop for valuable information players wishing to play test these changes and adjust accordingly. While I do not play a Dok or WP I have had the benefit of grouping with players who have were playtesting this.

This is meant to be a resource for players wishing to try the .ab ex DoK / WP Feel free to add any other information that will assist in playing this new play style.

This thread is not the place to discuss feedback

GENERAL CHANGES:
Spoiler:
General changes:

- Switching between the Prayers of Absolution and Devotion or the Covenants of Vitality and Tenacity invokes a 10 second cooldown for all Prayers and Covenants.
- Switching to or from Prayer of Righteousness or Covenant of Celerity results in a 300 second / 5 minute cooldown instead.
+ The cooldown of Absence of Faith is now 10 seconds.
-Divine Fury, Fanaticism and Murderous Intent no longer affect lifestealing skills.

Tomes/Chalices

The regeneration of a tome or chalice now scales with the Morale scaler. With no morale bonus (less than 18 enemies nearby) these items will not regenerate any mechanic points. With full morale bonus (72 or more enemies nearby), these items will regenerate at their full rate.

Prayer of Absolution and Covenant of Tenacity:
+ Provide 8 Righteous Fury / Soul Essence per second.
+ Convert your Strength bonus from items into Willpower.
- Reduce your armor by 50%. This is a multiplicative modifier, and thus also reduces the effect of potions, talismans and debuffs for armor.

Prayer of Devotion and Covenant of Vitality:
-Melee healing done in this spec are affected by challenge and absorb-shields
+All damage done while using Prayer of Devotion/Covenant of Vitality is halved.
+ Convert your Willpower bonus from items into Strength.
+ You will gain 50% of your Strength bonus from items as Willpower whenever you strike a target with a Path of Grace or Path of Sacrifice ability.
This effect stacks up to three times and lasts for 12 seconds, and will be removed if you remove the Prayer or Covenant.
+ Your detaunt will gain the effect of the Intimidating Repent or Terrifying Aura tactic, becoming AoE however the detaunt increases to 25seconds
+ Sigmar's Radiance and Transfer Essence will deal 50% less damage, but will heal for five times as much and has 20% Strikethrough.
+ Rend Soul and Divine Assault will deal 50% less damage, but will heal for 50% more, will heal for the mitigated and absorbed value as well, and become undefendable

++Sigmar's Radiance and Transfer Essence heal for 250% of the damage both received and mitigated by the target rather than a base component and a damage component. This value will increase with the Grace of Sigmar and Empowered Transfer tactics. This is to ensure that detaunts and damage reductions affect the output of these skills equally when compared with Divine Assault and Rend Soul.

Prayer of Righteousness and Covenant of Celerity:
-When this ability becomes active or the instant it is no longer active you will lose all your current action points.

-You will lose 5 resource (Righteous Fury/ Soul Essence) per second to power this effect. This drain will now occur for 10 seconds after the last time Covenant of Celerity or Prayer of Righteousness amplified the damage of a Wrath or Torture skill. This does not occur when a DoT ticks, but it does occur when you proc the Covenant or Prayer through dealing direct damage.

+ Convert your Willpower bonus from items into Strength.

Prayer of Righteousness:
+ The damage inflicted by Path of Wrath skills increases based on your Righteous Fury level, to a maximum of 40%.
+ When you trigger your Prayer of Righteousness, it will increase your movement speed by 20% for 5 seconds. This will only affect you.


Covenant of Celerity:
+ The damage inflicted by Path of Torture skills increases based on your Soul Essence level, to a maximum of 25%.
Ade's "A Comprehensive guide to Dok/WP .ab ex"
(Update coming)
Spoiler:
adei wrote:Overview of changes to WP/DoK
Changes


Wrath/Torture
If you plan on going for the true DPS WP/DoK you will of course be playing Wrath or Torture. To start out with lets talk about Wrath. Also... warning because of the length of all this rubbish.

Wrath
Here is the build that I ran with
http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=wp; ... 1:;0:0:0:0:
You can spend the rest of the points in whatever you want, this is just the essentials.

I had 1005 str, the reason behind this was because of a previous change to HoS applying automatic critical hit below 50%, I found I did not need to stack critical rating due to the initiative debuff that WP also receives, I crit often and do good damage. With the 40% increase whilst staying in PoR you really become a threatening mdps, the burst potential for this class now is just fantastic, I will post some examples. Typical rotation that I found most effective was Constigation – Weight of Guilt – Bludgeon – HoS, of course this is not factoring your new and improved heal debuff, or silence etc, this is simply a method of maximum burst, typically when you can land this on an unguarded target/punt the guard away the following damage is enough with the first 3 hits combined with an auto attack to reduce them below 50, hit them with a HoS and then its all situational, in a more organised format you would need the heal debuff and a bit of time to set up this combo, but for solo play or pug play, you should be demolishing any unsuspecting target.

Also worth mentioning of course is the heal debuff, its not 10 seconds duration and is a curse, the bonus now is that unlike DoK you have a spare tactic slot to use, granted you cannot put it on multiple enemies like the DoK can, but it does open up more variety in your build, so you can take the aoe detaunt since you will not have it in PoR or take GS for maximum damage and aided healing.

You could build the WP in a more crit focused build with the 2h hammer and renown, that is an option, I personally prefer running the strength as I still have 15% crit + initi debuff and found myself critting more than enough, so the I prefer the flat str. Also in a group format if you have another armor debuffer feel free to take Virtue hammer for snare. Despite the 20% movement speed charge you gain once proccing your own prayer, catching squigs/shamans is still a pain due to the fact that your own proc will generally proc their racial/or they will just naturally kite you with their kit. It is still great for kiting melees yourself, and catching others.

Wrath damage example video

Click here to watch on YouTube

Torture
Here is the build I ran with
http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=dok ... 9:;0:0:0:0:
Heavy on dots, still picking up devour, its just too good to pass up.

As for torture, torture still holds some good burst potential, however not like the WP, in previous test versions the damage increase for both of these classes while in the 'dps stance' was 50%, this was far too much for the DoK, it was just far too strong, plus the DoK also has a much better tree to utilise, and its covenants are better than the prayers, given it gives you a group snare, is is also a much more sustain/pressure based given the amount of dots it can apply and continue to be a pain in the backside. WA does not hit as hard as HoS does, but it still hits for a decent amount, you can expect 1k or above on an unguarded target for example. The sustain damage from the dots being increased by 25% also adds more pressure, it plays the same as it always has, you just have more damage.

The downside of playing a pure dps of these is that if you find yourself in a bad situation, you will be swapping into CoV/PoD in order to keep yourself alive, doing this takes your damage back to normal levels, so use it when you need to, if you fill a traditional mdps role you should be good to stick in dps, however having this undefendable backup heals is just great utility, and I will explain more of that in Grace/Sacrifice.

Another upside to playing these is that you will now be using abilies that you didnt before. Cleave Soul becomes your new bread and butter over TE since it will do more damage for example. And when you do decide to heal your damage % will be dropping, so you are not as much of a threat when support healing.

So overall.
DPS WPS – Fantastic burst damage, improved curse heal debuff, very satisfying to play, can offheal when needed at loss of damage.
DPS DoK – Decent burst damage, Great sustain/pressure, can offheal when needed at loss of damage.

Grace/Sacrifice
Now if you want to play a pure melee healer, it is now very possible, there are many builds which you can now utilise, and that is really going to depend on what playstyle you prefer and what your group setup would need.

I don't really need to talk about them individually here, they are very similar in playstyle. If you want to be a true melee healer you will be in CoV/PoD all the time, there is no reason to swap out unless as a DoK you need the group snare badly, but do so at your own risk. You will have the highest hps in the game, averaging at around 1k/hps, your TE/SR will be healing anywhere from 700-1k+, will be higher depend on the tactic you run such as ET. Your RS/DA will be getting a constant 4-5k if not interrupted. Also when you have your 3 willpower stacks your KI will be getting heals for 1k+ as well, great as a quick backline heal if you get punted, + your hots will now be more effective. Not to mention you now get a free aoe detaunt, becoming more sturdy without guard.

With the attacks being undefendable its now great when enemy tanks decide to babysit you, they will be a benefit to you, if you stand next to a melee DoK/WP that is using grace or sac, be prepared to deal with the undefendable hits, even annoying tanks are no match for the healing potential, so will require communication in an organised group, they still hold the same counters, KD, taunt, absorbs etc, that has not changed, healing has simply become more reliable and allows them to actually do their job at the loss of damage. With the damage nerf to TE/SR and RS/DA, it means you will loose your main damaging skill, but you still have your general abilities to compensate for this, either way the healing it provides is too good to pass up.

I feel that sac DoK is still ahead due to its tree and devour, it gives you damage where WP does not have it, which when playing melee healer is something you will now lack, WP tree is just a bit less involved compared to DoK, SS is still a no go imo. However that is not to say that the WP cannot keep up, it really does provide some fantastic healing. Also on top of devour is the general toolset, you still have dots and a better HD if you plan to run it.

Grace WP – Fantastic healing, average damage, great survivability, could fill the role of a group healer.
Sacrifice DoK – Fantastic healing, slightly better damage, great survivability, could fill the role of a group healer.

In both of these trees you have a lot of leeway in your build, either go for a traditional full melee heal/support, or you can go for the hybrid ( my personal favourite ) so more damage that way, you just loose a bit of healing if you don't slot ET.

Example builds
Dok
Pure melee heal
http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=dok ... 6:;0:0:0:0:
So many options here, would go for the covenant procs personally because you will most likely always be in vitality, so its just extra healing/damage you are not having to spend for, just as much healing as you can get while still being in melee, ET just makes your healing rock solid.

Hybrid
http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=dok ... 9:;0:0:0:0:
My favourite build, plenty of damage, and fantastic healing, your hots and KI will be much less effective, but your melee healing will also increase some, as well as being able to still be a threat on the battlefield, great for roaming. I take FS over WS/SE because I am not a scenario man or a larger group player, I roam in a duo/trio and generally fight larger groups, so FS gives me a spread HD and just added pressure, also it has a 30 ft range so good for pre-casting. Also I just like it more.

WP
Pure melee heal
http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=wp; ... 4:;0:0:0:0:
Same as DoK, just as much healing as you can get here, GoS just making your heals as solid as they can, if you want to run as a healer in melee as best as possible, you have to take it. Apart from that just going for more healing and survivability.

Hybrid
http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=wp; ... 4:;0:0:0:0:
All the way up for HoS for some extra damage, even without the 40% its still going to be decent with the automatic crit and extra damage from previous patch, also gives you an opportunity to swap into PoR for some surprise execute damage. Taking GoS again here because unlike DoK you don't need a tactic for the HD, so just more solid heals making you harder to kill.

These are just some very basic builds, there are really so many options to choose from to go with a playstyle you find best. And yes, this is my personal view, everyone is different.

If you made it this far, pm me in game for a manticore because I would have quit after seeing who posted this mess. Lets move onto the the ever famous backline bots.

Now, again not going to split here just going to cover the general idea behind it all. Fist off, the armor issue, lets do some math! So lets start with a base of around 3000 armor, and oh damn, you just got hit by an armor debuff!

3000-1000 = 2000 armor

Such math right, now with the new changes, lets see how this works.

3000 / 2 = 1500 armor
3000 - 1000 / 2 = 1000 armor

The amount of armor reduced is taken into account before the 50% adjustment, so you are not down to 500 armor, you stay at 1000, granted it is a huge jump down from your regular amount, but this means you are no longer an immortal god in most circumstances. But Ade! How am I supposed to survive even with a guard with that amount of armor? Good question, well its called stance dancing, if you are being focused hard swap to CoV/PoD and then you have an increase in your armor values, an aoe detaunt, and a but load of some melee heals considering the ratio swaps, so you can still maintain group healing when you are forced into a melee engagement.

It will take time to adjust and perhaps the values will also need to be tweaked, but with this you really have to decide when you want to swap or hold, much more engaging playstlye. The healing is still good from a backline PoV, and with a steady increase of your pool, it even gives you oppertunites to run different weapons with procs, so when you do get into that melee engage you are even more effective.

These changes are designed around the premise that the classes were created in the intent to make them a capable melee healer, and not – to quote the ever famous Paul Barnett here - ' sit at the back, and I heal, and I heal, and I heal ' which to an extent is what they have become, you are now forced to use your melee strength in order to benefit your group. Grace and Sac have become more than capable to support a group with the heals you can throw out, and you can also with the right builds and gearset increase your potential with stance swapping and stay at the backline until the time comes that you have to defend yourself.

So tldr
Melee healing – Can support a group, highest hps so far, loss of damage, reliable healing.
Melee DPS – Strong, reliable, good utility, loss of healing
Backling healing – Still strong, loss of tanking, ability to swap into melee healing when needed.
Zhoul's "Backline 102: Reflections from a .ab ex Backline DoK/WP"
Spoiler:
CecilHarvey wrote:My kneejerk reaction to these changes was very similar. I thought DoK/WP as a healer was done for, but after testing this for a few weeks now I can comfortably say It’s thriving just fine. I play Cagnazzo on Destruction and Calcabrina on Order, so if you saw me in the past few weeks it was under Ab Ex.

I went into the testing with the mindset of “make backline healing great again” after a lot of gear changes and altered talismans it functions just as it did

I will breakdown what I learned from making backline healing work. First and foremost, pure of any play style be it backline or melee leaves you neglecting tools in your bag, so I don’t recommend it.

Gear: This is where the largest change happened. Previously I wore full Annihilator stacked to the gills with armor talis, now I wear three piece mercenary, ruin shoulders, crit heal influence helm, double SC healing swords,
Talismans: All talismans have changed from armor to strength. Yes, I backline heal in strength talismans.

Specs: For DoK: http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=dok ... 6:;0:0:0:0:
WP: http://waronlinebuilder.org/#career=wp; ... 4:;0:0:0:0:

In both specs the TE/SR tactic is pretty key in allowing you to put out sufficient healing on any target, be it on an armor debuffed Witch hunter/Elf or an armor stacked Iron Breaker.

I know it looks pretty strange, but let me explain why all the changes.

Strength now converts 1 for 1 into willpower when you’re in Tenacity or Absolutions. The real benefit comes from how strength interacts with Devotion/Vitality it becomes 1 to 1.5 so 10 strength is 15 willpower with 3 stacks build up.
Armor stacking is no longer as appealing with the changes. First, Your armor is cut in half while Tenacity/Absolution is up, this includes the buff itself. Second, your strength suffers when those melee heals are most needed, under pressure.
None of this works without an altered mindset of how the class now functions. The class feels much more like a Zealot or Rune Priest than the previous priest class. The direction I took DoK/WP is very different from what I saw other testers do, I was about 80% backline healing and 20% melee healing, others being the opposite.

How does this all work together? The backline healing remains the same, but you need to remember you can’t tank a melee train nearly as well anymore. When any melee attempts to put pressure on you immediately switch to vitality and detaunt if necessary and switch to healing through Transfer Essence or Sigmar’s Radiance (which is why I use the TE/SR tactic) You can’t stay static in one style. If you get punted switch to Tenacity/Absolution in air and heal from that, if they pressure you switch to Vitality/Devotion gain a free AoE detaunt and heal from melee. Pets and low armor targets are your bread and butter, you will gain the most healing from them, even a tank harassing the backlines is a viable target to leech heal from and build stacks to make your cast heals stronger.

I have played this in OrvR, SCs, 6v6 and small skirmish RvR groups, these changes give DoK/WP far more options to work with than they previously had
Last edited by Gobtar on Wed Nov 23, 2016 1:19 pm, edited 16 times in total.
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Gobtar
Posts: 796

Re: DOK + WP .ab ex tips and tricks

Post#2 » Wed Nov 16, 2016 3:40 pm

Additions - Changes implemented as patches continue - this will post will contain patch notes that have not been added to the above post.

-Main post is up to date as of 19/11/2016 Changelog (including Reverts) -(posted 21/11/2016)

FAQ:

Q: Will changes to Covenant of Celerity and Prayer of Righteousness mean that I will start combat with 0 Righteous Fury/ Soul Essence?
Spoiler:
A: Celerity/Righteousness drain on resource only lasts 10 seconds after using a Wrath or Torture skill amplified by Covenant of Celerity or Prayer of Righteousness
Q: DoKs and Warrior Priests aren't affected by heal-debuffs! How do I stop them?
Spoiler:
A: These tools are effective against all healers
+Cooldown increasers
+timed interrupts such as taunt (on Rend or Divine assault)
+Focusing target /assisting
+timed KDs are essential for dealing the killing blow.
+Lowering Chance to crit (such as Try an' hurt me)
+Punting Guard

While these are especially effective to lifetap healers.
*Challange
*100% Defensive skills
*Ya missed me, Dragons Talon, Immaculate Defense, Distracting Bellow.
Last edited by Gobtar on Mon Nov 21, 2016 2:25 pm, edited 15 times in total.
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Penril
Posts: 4441

Re: DOK + WP .ab ex tips and tricks

Post#3 » Wed Nov 16, 2016 3:41 pm

Keep this thread clean. If you wan't to complain, go to the 11/15 Changelog thread. This thread is not for discussing anything; it just recompiles some tips and tricks on how to play Dok/WP with the new .ab ex.

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Jaycub
Posts: 3130

Re: DOK + WP .ab ex tips and tricks

Post#4 » Wed Nov 16, 2016 3:45 pm

Thanks for this, hopefully it will help steer players into the right direction for testing and thus giving good feedback themselves or just in general enjoying the new changes as much as possible.
<Lords of the Locker Room> <Old School>

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Akalukz
Posts: 1587

Re: DOK + WP .ab ex tips and tricks

Post#5 » Thu Nov 17, 2016 2:13 pm

Ok i am really struggling with the technical part of the covenants.



Prayer of Absolution and Covenant of Tenacity:
+ Provide 8 Righteous Fury / Soul Essence per second.
+ Convert your Strength bonus from items into Willpower.
- Reduce your armor by 50%. This is a multiplicative modifier, and thus also reduces the effect of potions, talismans and debuffs for armor.

So, as long as I have this covenant on I will have 50% armor (buff / equipment / talismans) and my strength will convert 1:1 to willpower (only from items) So if I have 750 willpower, and 250 strength from equipment (and talismans ?) i would actually have 1000 willpower contributing towards heals? I am pretty sure strength buffs / potions do not convert correct?
_____________________________-

Prayer of Devotion and Covenant of Vitality:
+ Convert your Willpower bonus from items into Strength.
+ You will gain 50% of your Strength bonus from items as Willpower whenever you strike a target with a Path of Grace or Path of Sacrifice ability.
This effect stacks up to three times and lasts for 12 seconds, and will be removed if you remove the Prayer or Covenant.

So this covenant means I have full armor and an AoE detaunt (even with out the tacic?) and I get 1:1 willpower to strength (from equipment) reverse of tenacity? In addition, I get 0.5:1 strength to willpower (half the benefit of tenacity?) Because in one of the tips is says 1:1.5 strength to willpower
The real benefit comes from how strength interacts with Devotion/Vitality it becomes 1 to 1.5 so 10 strength is 15 willpower with 3 stacks build up.

And I totally don't get this stack build up thing? I don't see any buffs? like on the magus stacks, should we? Sorry for being so dense, and if this isn't a good thread for this post, please let me know where I should post.

TLDR: Is it 1:1.5 or .5:1 strength to willpower in vitality, how do you tell the stacks, and does the equipment stats include talismans
-= Agony =-

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Azarael
Posts: 5332

Re: DOK + WP .ab ex tips and tricks

Post#6 » Thu Nov 17, 2016 2:59 pm

Regarding Absolution/Tenacity: correct. They convert item and talisman bonuses.

Regarding Devotion/Vitality: They convert item and Talisman bonuses from Willpower to Strength. Then, when striking a target with a Grace or Sacrifice ability, one stack of a buff is given which copies 50% of the item and Talisman bonuses from Strength (plus 50% of the converted item and Talisman bonuses from Willpower) onto Willpower. The buff is Soul Willpower I, and unfortunately, as the client controls whether a buff can be shown as stacking or not, there is no way to show the stack value, you have to keep track of it.

Example:

250 Strength
250 Willpower

Covenant of Vitality

500 Strength
0 Willpower

One strike from a Sacrifice ability

500 Strength
250 Willpower, increasing to 500 and 750 over the next strikes.

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Akalukz
Posts: 1587

Re: DOK + WP .ab ex tips, tricks and FAQ

Post#7 » Thu Nov 17, 2016 3:38 pm

Thanks for the clarification.
-= Agony =-

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Gobtar
Posts: 796

Re: DOK + WP .ab ex tips, tricks and FAQ

Post#8 » Thu Nov 17, 2016 5:31 pm

Updated - with new changes
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Gobtar
Posts: 796

Re: DOK + WP .ab ex tips, tricks and FAQ

Post#9 » Fri Nov 18, 2016 2:41 pm

Updated: Changes added to the second post.- When the changes settle I will reorganize the posts, until then they will remain in -patch-language- form
Last edited by Gobtar on Fri Nov 18, 2016 2:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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sotora
Posts: 320

Re: DOK + WP .ab ex tips, tricks and FAQ

Post#10 » Fri Nov 18, 2016 2:52 pm

It does not seem newest patch is added to changes.

edit: nevermind it seems like changes were added in second post. I think it might be confusing for players though. Isnt' it better to add newest changes to first post? Cause info there is outdated.

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