4.2 Talent Spec & Glyph Guide

theckhd wrote:The chance to miss, in the absolute worst case of 0 exp and 0% hit, is still only 28.5%. To lose Holy Shield, you would have to miss 6 Crusader Strikes in a row, which has a probability of 0.285^6=5.4e-4, or 0.054%.

Can it happen? Sure, anything's possible. Is it going to happen very often? No.

You have about a 5% chance of missing 4 out of 6 (binopdf(4,6,0.285)), which would prevent you from using a full 3-point SotR or WoG. You'd still be able to refresh Holy Shield, but at a cost. A 1- or 2-point WoG would probably be the best way to handle that situation. And EG procs may mitigate some of that.

And again, this is worst-case. Raise that to 2% hit and 10 expertise, and it drops the chance of missing 4/6 to 2% and 6/6 to 0.01%.

I'm starting to realize this change only strengthens WoG/Survival Builds and even further discourages Threat builds. Word of Glory can be used at 1 or 2 points (and possibly grant an EG proc) while SotR used at anything but 3 Holy Powers is a DPS loss. GC is even more mandatory now for filling in empty GCDs because Consecration without Hallow Ground can't be used half the time if you're at 50% mana. Chance to not get HoPo while struggling with mana to use CS because of a misused Consecreation? Yeah, we don't want any of that.

Perhaps WoG2 (Word of Glory with 2 HoPo) and WoG1 (with 1) should be added to the priority system of HoW>SotR>CS>J>AS>Cons(if you have the mana)>HW?

I did notice that mana was a little tighter. Casting fewer SotR (free) and more fillers (costly, especially HW and Cons) tended to run me low on mana. It's also possible that I just wasn't very careful about prioritizing Judgement though. That's one reason I think favoring J>AS will still be preferable to AS>J.

As far as talents go, your impressions seem to mirror my observations. Grand Crusader is a more important talent, because there are more chances to use the procs. Once I finish the sims, I expect it to see a noticeable DPS boost compared to 4.0.3a.

Hallowed Ground is now a little more interesting, because mana usage has increased slightly. While still not strictly necessary, this talent is now a slightly bigger Quality-of-Life improvement. I probably still won't take it, but it's certainly more appealing. I may go back to using the Ascetic Crusader glyph if mana still feels constraining.

Does the AS glyph change the priority in the rotation?

Is it better to glyph consecrate to increase its damage, or unglyph it to increase the chances to fill gaps?

Awyndel wrote:Does the AS glyph change the priority in the rotation?

Not especially. I have it glyphed in the rotation simulations, and it's still better to use J>AS. Doubly so given the tighter mana limitations we're working under now. Unglyphing it will make AS weaker, but it'll still be higher priority than Cons because of the shorter cooldown, better mana efficiency, and Grand Crusader procs.

Awyndel wrote:Is it better to glyph consecrate to increase its damage, or unglyph it to increase the chances to fill gaps?

Probably irrelevant. While we have more gaps, there's still not that many of them. I have trouble believing that reducing the cooldown by 6 seconds will get you more than 20% extra uptime, which is what it would take to match the glyph. And from a pure mana-efficiency standpoint, casting fewer larger Consecrations is going to be more efficient than many smaller ones.

My impression from raiding last night is that the limiting factor in Consecration usage isn't available GCDs, its mana. I'll have an empty GCD in which to use it every 15-20 seconds or so, but I won't always have the mana to cast it. So I'm inclined to say that mana-efficiency is the slightly more important issue.

In the end, Cons vs. no Cons at all is only around 200 DPS, so we're talking about variations of 20% of that value, or 40 DPS. I can try to sim that out, but it's right around the noise floor for these simulations, which means it'll be hard to get anything definitive out of it. Given the small magnitude of the difference, it's not a particularly high priority.

I did some tests on the major glyph Ascetic Crusader.

With Seal of Truth (glyphed), Blessing of Might and without the Ascetic Crusader glyph, a rotation of CS-X with SotR, Judgement, Avenger Shield (with Grand Crusader) and Holy Wrath with a priority system on J>AS>HW will eventually go out of mana against a Training Dummy. Without Sanctuary, this rotation is not sustainable and even more so if you add in Consecration without Hallowed Ground.

After I glyphed Ascetic Crusader and repeated the same test, I was able to sustain this rotation without going out of mana with my mana pool never dropping below 50% so long as I prioritized J>AS>HW in the X slot when I don't have 3 Holy Powers for SotR. Glyphing Ascetic Crusader seems to have a noticeable impact against single targets where they are less Sanctuary procs when it comes to mana management. Factoring Sanctuary in a real boss fight scenario, surely you can squeeze in a Consecration once in a while if your mana pool is in a comfortable spot.

Hello world!
We killed Halfus Wyrmbreaker 10hm yesterday for the first time. And I posted log at worldoflogs.
http://worldoflogs.com/reports/5qmgrgvo ... 740&e=7075
I tanked 3drakes and Whelps and our MT-bear tanked Halfus.
And I use ShoR only 1 time for all fight. After that, I think, I can change my build to smth like that:
http://wowtal.com/#k=-bxP1YgIn.aei.paladin.QJWWe
and use seal of insight and insight glyph.
40% of my self-heals was made by seal.
What do you think about heavy self-heal-surv build for hard-modes. If we need aoe, we use aoe glyphs (HoR and Cons), if we need singl-target - we use CS and Focused Shield glyphs.

I think that taking Seals of the Pure in a heavy survival build seems pointless, since it doesn't affect Insight. Those points will serve you better in Grand Crusader or Sacred Duty (for that one SotR you cast, or for situations where you want the extra threat). Or even Hallowed Ground.

I've been looking at Lazeil's tank off-spec and I've been thinking, why not move that 1 point in Reckoning from your WoG/Raid Build to 1 point in Hallowed Ground, Theck?

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sZhrhsRzdRRucbG

I know how much you like that 1 point in Hallowed Ground that gives you a peace of mind when using Consecration and I know how much you like the utility in Grand Crusade, which fills in those empty GCDs from our now broken Holy Power generation.

So, why not put two together and move that awkward point in Reckoning to one (just enough) point in Hallowed Ground for utility, peace of mind, and filling in empty GCDs?

Just some food for thought.

I've never particularly liked Hallowed Ground. Consecration is only around 200 DPS or so. A point in Reckoning is between 200 and 250. I don't see much point in giving up 200-250 "free" DPS to take a talent that makes it easier to get 200 DPS that takes a GCD and (still) a chunk of mana. Of course it's an option for people that prefer to use Cons, but after playing with the new mechanics I'd rather just skip that GCD if I don't have the mana for Cons.

Lazeil's second tank spec is pretty clearly an AoE spec for specific fights, as he's also skipped a point in Sacred Duty. His primary spec is exactly the same as the WoG spec I'm running, with 1/2 Reck and 0/2 HG. I think that makes for a much better general-purpose tanking build.

In my experience not glyphing concecrate still gives a lot more freedom on when you cast it. I'm just using the Cs mana glyph instead, haven't been going oom a lot since.

Updated for 4.1a.

theckhd wrote:Talent builds

I. The Protection Core
With 4.0 comes a significant restructuring of the talent trees and an increased degree of flexibility in how we spend them. The first step in any build is to put 31 points in the Protection tree.

There are 12 talents (23 points) that I would consider "essential" to be a successful raiding paladin. That means you have 8 "discretionary" points to spend in less essential talents to unlock the rest of the protection tree, and 10 points you can spend in any tree.

If you're coming here and just want to know "is my spec decent?" check against this core.....if you have all the talents here your spec is probably fine, if you don't it probably needs some work.

The Core:

Just a quick "broken link" report on the Core link at the end of this quote.

Thanks. It looks like they got rid of the talent calculators on the armory, which is a shame. Anyone know of a good place where you can build "unpossible" specs? If not I'll just have to list the core talents individually, I guess.