[Suggestion] Divine Aegis Stacking Thesis

Post by karlusdavius

-Insert link to blue post about Divine Aegis not stacking (when i find it)-

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Idea

Since reading the post about how "Stacking Divine Aegis would turn into crazy situations" i decided to try a few things on excel and see if i could come up with a viable way for Divine Aegis to stack without it becoming overpower in PvE or PvP.

The idea i came up with was a pretty simple one. The tooltip would read something like this.

Critical heals create a protective shield on the target, absorbing 30% of the amount healed, up to a maximum value equaling X% of your maximum mana. Lasts 12 sec.

In order to find the value of "X" i needed to find out what Divine Aegis' would return mana wise if the current bug was fixed and this change wasn't implemented.

Mana returns for Divine Aegis are as follows.

Mana Pool = 20,000

Value - Mana Return

1000 - 54
1500 - 81
2000 - 108
2500 - 135
3000 - 162
3500 - 189
4000 - 216
4500 - 243
5000 - 270

Continuing with the same mana value, lets see what amount we would have giving X a value of 10%/15%/20%/25% of 20,000.

10% - 2,000
15% - 3,000
20% - 4,000
25% - 5,000

As we are at the start of end game raiding, it is safe to assume that mana pools will rise to around the 30,000 mark. therefor Giving "X" these values

10% - 3,000
15% - 4,500
20% - 6,000
25% - 7,500

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Evaluation

Given current mana pool values of 20,000, a full "stack" of Divine Aegis would equal the following mana returns from rapture.

10% (2,000) - 108 mana return from full absorption
15% (3,000) - 162 mana return from full absorption
20% (4,000) - 216 mana return from full absorption
25% (5,000) - 270 mana return from full absorption

Given assumed high end content mana pool value of 30,000, a full "stack" of Divine Aegis would equal the following mana returns from rapture .

10% (3,000) - 243 mana return from full absorption
15% (4,500) - 365 mana return from full absorption
20% (6,000) - 486 mana return from full absorption
25% (7,500) - 607 mana return from full absorption

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*Edited 17/12/2008 - 21.06*

Considering High end content mana pools, it is safe to say that allowing Divine Aegis to stack up to 20% and 25% of our mana pool would return way too much mana via Rapture to be balanced. However 15% and 10% are much lower in value, and within certain fights, the target does not take an exceedingly high amount of damage. This cap could theoretically be reached, but i am uncertain if it could be maintained. From the view point of keeping balance throughout classes, i feel that giving "X" a value of 15% would not be overpowered, but not underpowered.

So our new tooltip would read,

Critical heals create a protective shield on the target, absorbing 30% of the amount healed, up to a maximum value equaling 15% of your maximum mana. Lasts 12 sec.

Doing a bit more math I've realized that 15% doesn't allow a full critical penance enough leverage to become useful. therefor, i will change the value to 20% for more discussion

our new tooltip becomes,

Critical heals create a protective shield on the target, absorbing 30% of the amount healed, up to a maximum value equaling 20% of your maximum mana. Lasts 12 sec.

Considering that We have yet to experience High end raiding content, with the assumed mana pool value of 30,000, Replenishment alone would return 75 mana per tick, 375 Mp5. In light of this, the fact that higher end content encounter will give out more damage than current bosses and that tanks will theoretically have far more stamina. A 20% maximum cap of the Divine Aegis stacking effect, which at 20,000 will produce a cap of 4,000, and a mana pool value of 30,000 will produce a cap of 6,000, will be a high cap, which we will quiet possibly struggle to reach.

*end edit*
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Allowing Divine aegis to stack upon itself would further enforce what the majority of Discipline priests are doing anyway, and stack Crit and also Int. Therefor it would not change the way People are playing the priests but allow us to actually complete to be "Main Tank" healers, as we are still second to Paladins, and considered "Support" healers. A title i am not happy with. To further push this as viable, A critical greater heal will create a Divine Aegis proc which would give over 3,000 mitigation anyway, however we do not use greater heal, as flash heal is far more efficient. allowing it to stack would help us with Main tank healing while not giving us abilities or walls that we cannot surpass already.

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PvP

As the new season starts today (if my dates are correct) then nobody has had a chance to see the mana pool values of a fully geared Priest. therefor, from the information i have gained from reading through the PvP forums ill attempt to state what impact this change "could" have on the Game.

Since high end content for PvP is considered arena, i will base my ideas with arena in mind. (please note i do not play much arena although i have dabbled, if anything is wrong within this section please tell me and give me accurate information)

From my own general reading it is my understanding that Blizzard are lowering the mana value of PvP items in order to further separate PvE and PvP. Therefor we can assume that mana pool values will not reach 30,000. therefore i feel it is safe to assume that a value of 15% would not be overpowered, unless the PvP items themselves contain a considerable amount more Crit rating that PvE gear. Considering Arena team setup, Allowing Divine Aegis to stack up to 3,000 could cause considerable problems with Partners with high mitigation or dodge rating. however if this is the case then i find it extremely unlikely and somewhat hard to "stack" Divine Aegis on myself without the use of penance. therefor there is always that weakness within a team that the priest can "GIVE" mitigation however cannot "receive" the same amount of mitigation in the same amount of time. To also counter this, with the state of PvP damage at the moment (granted it's without Resilience Gear) 3,000 it not a lot of damage, and therefor would not cause too many problems (again, this remains to be seen with Res gear).

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Worse Case Scenario

Say the change takes place. and say we become mitigation gods. One easy way i can see to counter this is to simply lower the amount Divine Aegis gets from a critical heal. even a 5% reduction would make it less potent but we would still receive the benefit both within PvP and PvE

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Replies and Comments

1) Stacking Discipline Priests to spam Greater Heal in order to keep Divine Aegis "Stacked"

In response to this, due to the Weakened Soul debuff that occurs after casting Power Word: Shield, Discipline priests cannot be "stacked" in a raid environment. However to solve the problem stated if it occured, the "Stacked" Divine Aegis buff that would be active would count only towards the priest who has the highest spell power. Further supporting the fact that Discipline Priests cannot be stacked in a raid, unless the heal different target's throughout.

Please keep comments and replies from becoming trolls and QQ. If you do not think the idea works, STATE in a CLEAR and CONCISE manner why you think so.

Post by Samanosuke

The main problem they were trying to avoid is when you have say...... 7 Disc priests all casting max rank Gheals not caring in the least about actually healing, landing constant crits on a tank in a fight such as Patchwerk. The stacking effect of the shields would cause the tanks to take absoutely zero damage.
Definately OP as spike damage become non existant.

Or imagine a series of Disc priests all Penancing the crap out of a target to keep a constant series of stacked rolling Shields on. Eventually the shields would stack to a ridiculous amount.

How would they account for multiple shields stacked up?
How would they be refreshed?

Forgot a shield is only created based on effective healing, so each Gheal/penance would only be making a shield of NOTHING since its an overheal, or be creating a fairly small shield since hardly anything was healed.
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The way it is currently, Divine Aegis is treated as a BUFF.

It's actually quite comparable to Ignite.

With buffs, typically they are NOT allowed to stack, and the strongest buff always overwrites the others.

However, now look at the treatment of Disc priests and their stackability as a result.

1) PW:S has a 15 sec shared, weakened soul effect. Brining multiple Disc's into a raid would have the effect of almost completely destroying the one of the priest's from using their own shield.

2) Divine Aegis lack of stacking. If you have 2 Disc priests, the one with the higher spellpower will ALWAYS overwrite the other's shield, effectively killing off a pretty large portion of their heals.

Post by karlusdavius

Very good points! now we can start to pick at it and see if it viable at all.

Considering that Discipline priests arn't stackable even without this change, it would make the discipline priest who is in the raid on a par with paladin healers who have

Divine Favor
Infusion of Light

your saying,

Or imagine a series of Disc priests all Penancing the crap out of a target to keep a constant series of stacked rolling Shields on. Eventually the shields would stack to a ridiculous amount.

7 Disc priests all casting max rank Gheals not caring in the least about actually healing, landing constant crits on a tank in a fight such as Patchwerk.

Your missing a key point in my argument here. Please read this part again.

Critical heals create a protective shield on the target, absorbing 30% of the amount healed, up to a maximum value equaling 15% of your maximum mana. Lasts 12 sec.

15% of maximum mana at 20,000 mana pool value is 3,000

There is no point in spamming greater heal in order to stack up, because the cap for the Divine Aegis value is 3,000. A constant spamming of greater heal won't happen because it is far more efficient to spam Flash Heal and Penance to hit that cap faster and also stay within the rapture cap too. And since crit is unreliable it will be very rare that the cap will even be reached.

Stackability is already a non issue because of Weakened Soul. Spamming greater heal is a non issue because of the cap imposed by the Divine Aegis change. Allowing a secondary buff to having a triple crit Penance is something that the 51 point talent really needs. Because even our flash heal won't be enough to stack it fast enough within a boss fight where the tank will be taking way in excess of 3,000 damage per hit.

The only problem i can see is when we triple crit penance and then PW:S. that's a lot of mitigation there, however again in PvE the boss fights should start hitting harder and harder. even at an assumed mana pool value of 30,000 the Divine Aegis stacking effect cap;s at 4,500. again if there fights are gonna be getting harder, then this really isn't much, and within a PvP context, it is a buff, therefor it stands that it can be dispelled if it does proc, just like PW:S

Post by 106152

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by karlusdavius

How often do you heal with Greater Heal personally i use flash heal and Penance. My penance is critting at around 5k. 3 of those wont reach the cap. Yes a greater heal would hit the cap, but greater heal (for me) is mostly used after a penance when my tank literally just got taken down to about 90% in a heartbeat. If a greater heal critted then great. fully capped Divine Aegis. But if a flash heal critted after that, your greater heal DA would be overwritten, if i'm correct.

Your arguing on your own topic about asking for a 2 and 4 piece set bonus in tier gear, yet you want to use greater heal? if thats the case why not just keep the 2 and 4 set bonus piece ;)

you may see it as a nerf, but i doubt the majority of others will. It will be a massive improvement for the tools we use the most.

Post by karlusdavius

Post by Samanosuke

To be honest? i'm not sure that is true. Ill need to test it but in heroics (well geared group) i usually &*!@ around and cast penance when out of combat. penance critted just before a pull. now i watched his portrait and i'm pretty sure i saw a few "absorbed" words popping up. Again, ill need to test it fully, but if it isn't the case then again, there is no reason why Divine Aegis shouldn't stack your right, except for the fact that they might be worried about multi Disc Crit heals stacking the Divine Aegis buff, but again the fact that even before i brought this up we weren't stackable means that if this were to be implemented, the Priest with the highest Spellpower's Divine Aegis is the one that will be active.

Confirmed.
I tested it just now.

Divine Aegis procs on overheals.

The tooltip for DA and Rapture say the exact same thing when it comes to healing, but what isnt stated is effective versus noneffective healing.

However, I still see no reason why DA doesnt stack considering the shield amount is in lieu of Disc's actual healing.

They are worried about multiple Disc priests creating a series of MEGASHIELDS before a boss fight. However there are a couple of easy fixes to this...

Allow DA to stack (additive to old shield) but remove the ability for Divine Aegis to REFRESH and instead giving it a longer time overall (~20 sec) will eliminate the potential for people to sit there casting and stacking/refreshing a hugmoungous shield before the start of a boss.

Either that or just allow multiple stacks of Divine Aegis on a target (you see multiple little icons, each representing it's own shield) and leave the timer the same or even decreased. This way a group of priests COULDNT sit there stacking shields for an hour, because they would constantly be wearing off. Shields would then be used on a FIFO (First In First Out) order of depletion.

Post by karlusdavius

Again read my original idea.

To get 3 even 4 critical heals in a row is extremely rare except when possibly using Inner Focus with penance. Putting the 15% maximum mana value eliminates the need to alter the spell in any way except for implementing a cap. The shield will more than likely be absorbed by one boss hit anyway, so any critical heals after a full "stack" would not improve the shield, just refresh the duration. However if the shield had been partially adsorbed, then 30% of the healed value will be added to the existing shield and the duration refreshed, but i can only see this on a trash heroic pull when we are way over geared.

Post by 240805

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by karlusdavius

care to link? and yes, we do need a little reworking in the toolage department. i just don't think we can be on a par with paladins just yet.

Post by 240805

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by osuracnaes

Post by 106152

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by 240805

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by karlusdavius

Again read my original idea.

To get 3 even 4 critical heals in a row is extremely rare except when possibly using Inner Focus with penance.

With a 30% chance to crit with Penance you have an 18% chance to crit twice and a 3% chance to crit all three times. While not exactly common, I wouldn't call it extremely rare.

3 to 4 times. And i would call 3% pretty dam rare. However if this is the math behind it, i dont see why Divine Aegis should not be able to stack up to a capped limit. a Penance tick critting for 5,000 will give a Divine Aegis value of 1,500

Penance ticks all crit. that gives a value of 4,500.

so judging by my maths. 15% looks like to low a value to be able 2 get the full amount back from penance.

so maybe 20% or possible 18% would be a better value?

Post by karlusdavius

edited the OP.

Post by karlusdavius

Gonna try and put this on the official suggestion forums sometime soon. any more criticism or feedback about this?

[Suggestion] Divine Aegis Stacking Thesis

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