I'd like to share my feedback regarding 2 specific aspects of the PTS patch:
Firstly, I'd like to address the new healer tactic; Sacrificial Renewal
Sacrificial Renewal - New Tactic replacing Subtlety: Whenever you critically heal an ally, you increase the power of your heals by 15% for 5 seconds, but you also take 10% more damage from all sources.
I really like this tactic in theory. Giving up survivability for more healing is a really nice ideal to spice builds up.
However, it comes with a huge caveat. Due to it working via a proc, addons such as Aura or Buffhead could be customized to detect it and as such give the healers who decide to use a (literal) mark on their back.
While this can already be a calculated risk weighed in when designing the tactic (could be why it provides more outgoing healing% than incoming damage% increase), it will exarcerbate differences between organized and pug groups/players. Lack of up to date UI is a huge issue for the majority of the playerbase, especially for niche things such updating Aura/Buffhead with a custom icon for a new ability ID (or getting a newly developed Addon that does the same thing for this proc specifically)
Proposal: Since the tactic does not require direct heal crit, but any heal crit instead, most healers already can have near 100% uptime on the ability. For that reason
I would like to propose removing the proc aspect of it entirely and making just provide those stats passively (+15% outgoing heal +10% incoming damage) like a regular stat tactic. That way, there wouldn't be any easy way to track it via addons and lead to the situation described above. If the risk-reward aspect of the proc tracking has been taken into account, then perhaps you could adjust the tactic without that risk (e.g. +10% +10%, or +12% +12%)
Moving on now to the 2nd issue.
I would like to discuss the overall healing output of the Zealot class (and Runepriest by extension).
Previously, one would activate a Ritual at the start of the fight and refresh it after 30 seconds were up.
Each ritual would tick 11 times (0,3,6,9,12,15,18,21,24,27,30). This gives us 11 ticks/30 seconds = 0.367 ticks/second.
And conversely, with the new Rituals, we get a tick 3 times (0,5,10) resulting in 3ticks/10 seconds = 0.30 ticks/second.
This means you get 18% less chances to proc your procs (Blessing of Chaos, Tzeentch's Grip and the Triumphant procs) over time, even if you were to perfectly refresh your Rituals.
You also get fewer ticks in the middle of their duration compared to before, but more ticks at the start and end of each ritual (that also occurs more often with the new changes). This is an issue since getting 2 procs at the same time (end tick of Ritual 1 and start tick of Ritual 2) basically wastes a proc. This isn’t a big issue on long duration/small proc chance buffs such as
but it can lead to a lower uptime for smaller duration procs such as Triumphant's
I will for the purposes of this analysis ignore that the new Rituals are way less evenly spread out compared to old Rituals and I will just use the above rates as if they were uniform.
For simplicity I will also take my current Healer Build to use for stats (
https://killboard.returnofreckoning.com ... 865/armory)
And this for renown
Let's examine the 3 major procs that Zealot cares about:
- Blessing of Chaos: 100% chance to proc on direct heal crit on each target, 10 s duration.
Chance to proc it on a direct heal on the target = 1*(0.10+0.36) = 0.46 per direct heal
The expected value of direct heals (ticks) required to proc it is given by 1/p, so 1/0.46 = 2.17 ticks
- With the Old Rituals that gives us an expected value of time between procs on a target of 2.17/0.367 = 5.9 seconds. This is less than the duration of the proc (10s) so we can effectively expect great uptime on it.
- With the new Rituals that gives us an expected value of time between procs on a target of 2.17/0.30 = 7.23 seconds. This quite longer and as such both the risk of not refreshing the tactic in time is higher, but also the tactic will take longer to be applied for the first time too (very important in big fights)
If we were to always start the fight with the new Ritual of Lunacy that provides 10% heal crit if we are in range and assuming that the 10% bonus crit applies for the first Ritual tick, the expected time is 5.90 seconds (same as before). However, that is not always the ideal strategy since you might want to save Lunacy Ritual for when your party goes into the offensive. Also it might not be feasible to stay within range for it.
- Tzeentch's Grip: 25% chance to proc on direct heal on each target, up to 10 s duration.
Chance to proc it on a direct heal on the target = 0.25 per direct heal
The expected value of direct heals (ticks) required to proc it = 1/0.25 = 4 ticks
- With the Old Rituals that gives us an expected value of time between procs on a target of 4/0.367 = 10.9 seconds. This is already more than the max duration the proc can stay active, especially if the recipient is getting hit (shield can last a couple of seconds max)
- With the new Rituals that gives us an expected value of time between procs on a target of 4/0.30 = 13.3 seconds. This is also quite long
- Increasing Impetus: 5% chance per target to proc on direct heal, 5 s duration.
Chance to proc it on a direct heal on a target = 0.5 per direct heal
Assuming we always heal 6 targets with it, chance to proc it per tick = 1 -(1-0.05)^6 = 26.5%
The expected value of direct heals (ticks) required to proc it = 1/0.265 = 3.77 ticks
- With the Old Rituals that gives us an expected value of time between procs on a target of 3.77/0.367 = 10.3 seconds. The uptime wasn't the best before and 50% (5/10.3) sounds about right from my experience.
- With the new Rituals that gives us an expected value of time between procs on a target of 3.77/0.30 = 12.6 seconds. This is also quite long and results in a 40% uptime.
But that's just one third of the equation.
The second part is the healing of the rituals themselves.
Let's examine the heal value they provide on a Global Cooldown (GCD) basis.
I will use this Mastery Build in both cases (focus on the Points in each tree):
This means on the old build we have 14 points in the Right Tree for Ritual of Lunacy.
For the new Rituals, I will just take the average of the mastery points in each tree (instead of calculating each Ritual healing specifically and averaging them). (5+5+14)/3 = 24/3 = 8 Mastery points for each new Ritual.
Will not factor in heal crit for now.
For a 186.4 Healing Bonus (with Discipline) we get for the old and new Rituals:
- Old Ritual Healing per tick = 209*44/45 + 0.13*186.4 = 228 heal/tick per target
Old Ritual tick/second = 0.367
Old Ritual seconds (of uptime)/GCD = 30
Old Ritual Healing per GCD spent = 228 * 0.367 * 30 = 2510 heal/GCD per target
For 6 targets that's 15060 heal/GCD
- New Ritual Healing per tick = 168*38/45 + 0.8*186.4 = 290 heal/tick per target
New Ritual tick/second = 0.30
New Ritual seconds (of uptime)/GCD = 10
New Ritual Healing per GCD spent = 290 * 0.30 * 10 = 870 heal/GCD per target
For 6 targets that's 5220 heal/GCD
This means that the new Rituals are 65.3% less efficient in their heal output/GCD compared to the old ones (for this build)
But this doesn't mean much in a vacuum. Especially considering that other important skills such as Tzeentch's Cordial and Leaping Alteration were buffed. Let's examine those too for this build:
- Old Tzeentch's Cordial = 300 + 0.9 * 186.4 = 467 per tick and for 5 ticks/GCD we get 2335 heal/GCD
- New Tzeentch's Cordial = 251 + 1.2 * 186.4 = 474 per tick and for 5 ticks/GCD we get 2370 heal/GCD
- Old Leaping Alteration = 221*44/45 + 0.5 * 186.4 = 309 per tick per target and for 3 ticks/GCD we get 927 heal/GCD per target = 5562 heal/GCD (if it hops on max number of targets)
- New Leaping Alteration = 217*44/45 + 1.0 * 186.4 = 398 per tick per target and for 3 ticks/GCD we get 1194 heal/GCD per target = 7164 heal/GCD (if it hops on max number of targets)
Now let's check the Healing of the old and new Zealot versions over a 30 second rotation using those skills. We will examine t= -0.5 s before the first GCD up until t= +29.5 after the first GCD for a total of 30 seconds and 20 abilities used:
- Old Zealot
1 old Ritual + 3 old Leaping Alterations + 16 old Tzeentch's Cordial
Total Heal = 1*15060 + 3*5562 + 16*2335 = 69106 heal over 30 seconds or 2303 heal/s
- NewZealot
3 new Rituals + 3 new Leaping Alterations + 14 new Tzeentch's Cordial
Total Heal = 3*5220 + 3*7164 + 14*2370 = 70332 heal over 30 seconds or 2344 heal/s
As we can see, the new Leaping Alteration pretty much makes up for the heal loss from the new Rituals. However, what happens if the new Rituals only heal 4 out of 6 people in the party on average due to their reduced range?
4 targets instead of 6 means 4*870 = 3480 heal/GCD --> Total Heal = 65112 heal over 30 seconds or 2170 heal/s
That's 7.4% less healing output.
There is also one last thing to consider. With the new Rituals, when Ritual of Lunacy is up and you are in the radius of the Ritual you have 10% extra heal crit. With a 10/30 = 0.33 uptime, that's a 3.3% heal crit bonus on average. This difference leads to a different heal modifier.
Let's adjust those heal values with the respective heal modifiers:
- Average heal crit modifier for Old Zealot = 1 +(0.10+0.36)*0.45 = 1.207
Crit averaged heal/s in the Old Zealot rotation = 2344*1.207 = 2829 heal/s
- Average heal crit modifier for New Zealot = 1 +(0.10+0.36+0.033)*0.45 = 1.222
Crit averaged heal/s in the New Zealot rotation (4 targets affected by Ritual heals on average) = 2170*1.222 = 2651 heal/s
With this adjustment the heal output of the new Zealot rotation is only 6.3% less than before.
The final piece of the puzzle is the Ritual secondary effects.
While those can't actually be measured against something else we can judge them qualitatively.
- 10% bonus crit is an amazing bonus for classes that don't already have a Boost proc on their build.
- 50% AP cost reduction is extremely strong and although it might be a big worse than the previous AP proc when it comes to AOE dps, it is for sure much better for Healers and Tanks who can't really keep hitting people in an AOE manner.
- The new absorb shield proc is conditionally better than the old one, unless you are under very heavy focus. If interested on that analysis then you can check out my previous comments in the post. Overall should be nearly the same value or slightly better as before.
Final thing to consider is that the 4 other healer classes besides Zealot/Runepriest got overall buffs to their healing output from this patch (can elaborate if needed) and from them only Shaman arguably paid for it in lowed survivability. Since Zealots/Runepriest were already the classes with the lowest healing output even before this past, and considering the above analysis, the heal output discrepancies will only get larger. Their strong suit (providing protection to the part in the form of shield procs) has been nerfed by aproximately 18% as showcased above and also their utility has also degraded by not being able to apply their on Blessing of Chaos as consistently as before when DOK/WP also got another alternative buff to that that is quite easier to apply for most classes (especially dps). I'm not convinced if the new Ritual secondary effects are significant enough to offset the above issues, especially when moving further than 50ft from the center of a ritual makes them not apply to your teammates anymore.
With those things in mind I have another...
Proposal:
- Increase the proc chance of Tzeentch's Grip and Blessing of Chaos by a small amount (e.g 25% -->30% or 35%). That will offset the Rituals' dimished proc rate without compromising the more active playstyle around Rituals that the update tried to achieve.
- Slightly increase the healing output of all Rituals by either a small or decent amount so as to get Zealot's healing output closer to Shaman/DOK post update (proportionate increase to what the estimated Sh/DOK heal output increase is, at minimum).
- This is hard to estimate already but should be something to check again once the patch rolls out, but maybe slightly increasing the Ritual effect radii to 55 or 60 ft will be needed to keep up with the natural pace of repositioning during a fight. Unsure yet.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading.
