Shaman Itemization and General mechanics

[Notsovilepriest]

<p>Now with potency cap removed and everything else, and shamans being shafted on crit bonus mechanics could we please get one of 2 things to happen.</p><p>1. Allow Crit Bonus to effect wards like every other heal *Better Choice</p><p>2. Make Shaman gear have potency in place of crit bonus almost all around.</p>

[Hene]

<p>I second this, and I'd also like to add: Look into mythical buff balance please.</p>

[Notsovilepriest]

<p>Also add to this that crit bonus change to wards would not stint the growth of non-shamans wards, IE, Pally and others of the liking.</p>

[Geothe]

<p>yeah.Crit bonus for shamans needs to be changed.In the past, it was logical that wards had lower crit values, because itemization didn't focus in on that at all.Now however, crit bonus is the major itemization focus and shamans are getting halved in effectiveness in all of their gear.</p><p>Keep the base crit value of wards lower than direct heals, as it is now.  But let crit bonus have full effect on wards.</p>

[Notsovilepriest]

<p>Why should wards get a lower base crit, Group ward doesn't last even a full AE most of the time without fury buff especially, and all that, I don't see why they need restricted at this point when you have 6+K Reactive ticks and all that, Even without the handicap it still wouldn't be possible for a shaman to heal incoming damage to a MT group specifically, so it's not like it would take other healers jobs.</p>

[snowli]

<p>For several expacs & years the difference in crit bonus mean that sometimes (when people crit healed) a shamans wards were 15% less effective.</p><p>With crit bonus as a new growth stat where some players getting crit bonuses over 100 wards get a permanent (everyone crit always now) 50% penalty.</p><p>15% sometimes penalty is now a 50% or more always penalty, it should have been a flat 15% penalty from the start not a halving of crit bonus mechanic which now causes a major issue.</p>

[Kari]

<p>Not sure why this was moved to equipment forum, but I agree the 50% penalty to wards critting is going to be a worse problem as crit bonus increases. I have noticed this expansion that my wards do a lower % of my overall heals than they used to, they are still my major source of heals but now I rely a lot more on procs, direct heals, and aa than in previous xpansions.</p>

[snowli]

<p><cite>Hene wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I second this, and I'd also like to add: Look into mythical buff balance please.</p></blockquote><p>I lost about 30% of my heal position compared to our defilers from the myth change, I've got a roughly similar loss compared to the other healers bar furies, I think if assassins & wizards lost 30% dps from a fix that was only intended for SK bugs there'd be more attention than 'maybe we keep an eye on it'.</p>

[Estean1]

<p><cite>Karianne@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Not sure why this was moved to equipment forum</p></blockquote><p>They read itemization in the title and didn't bother to actually read what the post was about</p>

[Aule]

No hard to understand why a volunteer would see "Shaman itemization" and move the thread to the item section. I wouldn't have read it either.

[Kiara]

<p>Well if it isn't about Shaman Itemization, it should have been titled something else.</p><p>If it's just about Shaman abilities, it needs to live in the General Priest forum, so I'll move it there.  Either way, it didn't belong in general gameplay and that is why it was moved.</p>

[Sedenten]

<p>This isn't just a shaman specific itemization issue, but applies to all classes that get a ward spell (i.e. wardens, templars).  It just affects shaman the most since wards are our primary form of healing.  </p><p>To add to the actual topic of discussion, I do agree that crit bonus should apply fully to all wards.  It has become one of the primary stats for growth for all classes, but doesn't fully affect ward like abilities. </p>

[Notsovilepriest]

<p><cite>Kiara wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Well if it isn't about Shaman Itemization, it should have been titled something else.</p><p>If it's just about Shaman abilities, it needs to live in the General Priest forum, so I'll move it there.  Either way, it didn't belong in general gameplay and that is why it was moved.</p></blockquote><p>but it does, It effects any and every class with wards. IE, Troub with AA, Dirge with AA, Warden, Templar, Pally, Zerker with AA, To limit it to just priest discussion is basically pushing it in the back woods. I'll admit the titling was wrong, but I fixed that.</p>

[Tehom]

<p>I'm a little nervous that if they do change crit bonus on wards the sheer size of group wards would make them do some knee-jerk and unnecessary nerf. In the long term, shamans getting less from crit bonus will cause balance issues assuming we don't get potency in values similar to the combined potency/crit bonus of other classes, so I agree that something does need to change eventually.</p><p>Right now I feel we're pretty well balanced due to a number of things - how strong our new AAs are, the size of our wards after potency was uncapped, etc, but itemization has become increasingly bizarre for us - since ability mod is generally on scout items, and +wis has no effect on our healing (except for mystic mythical effect), there's usually no compelling reason to take 'priest' variants of items when mage, fighter, or scout stuff has better combinations of reuse, potency, or ability mod unless there's specific procs we can use.</p>

[Malacha]

<p>The thing is, we don't REALLY get less from crit bonus. There are posts that explain why, prior to crit bonus, wards got 1.15 instead of 1.3 crit multiplier. It has to do with heals having a range, and wards only having a single amount. Every time I try to explain it, I use too many words and confuse even myself, even tho I fully understand the concept. Something about applying the average crit amount a heal would do ((max+1) + (max*2)/2) to wards.</p><p>That being said, with the abundance of crit bonus, I'm not sure how the original calculation now affects wards vs how they affect heals. Its not as simple as saying "Well wards only get half the bonus" when, originally, that half the bonus made sense mathmatically. I don't think simply removing the "half of the bonus" is the fix we need. A recalculation of the original equation to make wards as effective as heals with the same amount of crit bonus is what is needed. What that recalculation is, I don't know. I am not inclined to try to figure it out either.</p><p>Short version: Removing the "penalty" that wards get for crit bonus is not the answer, recalculating the equation is!</p>

[Tehom]

<p>Last time I checked, how it works is that you get half the value for critting on a ward that any other heal would get. If you have 60 crit bonus, or 1.9 modifier for heal crit, it'd be 1.45 for a ward. 0 crit bonus is 1.15, +50 is 1.4, etc.</p><p>The thing to remember is that eventually +crit bonus overwhelms spread and makes it irrelevant as people can no longer hit below the max+1 threshold. At that point there's no benefit to having a static value and the original reasoning for having wards with a smaller crit value would disappear.</p>

[Arcanemundi]

<p>This is how it seems to me:</p><p>Critical Wards:</p><p>At 0% Crit Bonus we get a 15% larger ward than base amount</p><p>At 50% Crit Bonus we get a 40% larger ward</p><p>At 100% Crit Bonus we get a 65% larger ward</p><p>Critical Direct Heals:</p><p><p>At 0% Crit Bonus we get a 30% larger heal than base amount</p><p>At 50% Crit Bonus we get a 80% larger heal</p><p>At 100% Crit Bonus we get a 130% larger heal</p></p><p>That's a big difference...</p><p>Another way to look at this is if you compare ward size to heals size.</p><p>Lets compare a 1000 point critical ward to a 1000 point critical heal:</p><p>At 0% Crit Bonus we get a 1150 size ward and a 1300 size heal (13% Larger Heal)</p><p>At 50% Crit Bonus we get a 1400 size ward and a 1800 size heal (29% Larger Heal)</p><p>At 100% Crit Bonus we get a 1650 size ward and a 2300 size heal (40% Larger Heal)</p><p>The heals are 40% larger than the wards at 100% crit bonus.</p><p>The more crit bonus you get, the less you benefit per percentage point if you cast wards mainly.  This has a similar returns graph as diminishing returns.  Although Shamans get hit with this mechanic harder than any other healing class since our wards are the main source of healing.</p><p><img src="http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z127/BCBYR/EQ2/EQ2Flames%20Files/CritBonusDifferencesforHeals.jpg" /></p><p><img src="http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z127/BCBYR/EQ2/EQ2Flames%20Files/WardCritDisadvantageGraph.jpg" /></p>

[Hene]

<p><cite>Malachani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The thing is, we don't REALLY get less from crit bonus. There are posts that explain why, prior to crit bonus, wards got 1.15 instead of 1.3 crit multiplier. It has to do with heals having a range, and wards only having a single amount. Every time I try to explain it, I use too many words and confuse even myself, even tho I fully understand the concept. Something about applying the average crit amount a heal would do ((max+1) + (max*2)/2) to wards.</p></blockquote><p>This is not the case at all.  Rather, when a heal crits it <em>gains</em> ground, not loses ground with respect to wards...e.g. for a completely exaggerated example, consider a heal from 1000-2000 with an average of 1500:</p><p>after a 1.3 crit multiplier it ranges from originally 1300-2600 this has an average of 1950. Well with the max + 1 limiter, it now ranges from 2001-2600 with an adjusted average of about 2150 or so.</p><p>so before min-limiter and after crit: 1950 / 1500 = 130% exactly</p><p>after crit: 2150 / 1500 = 143.33% or an <strong><em>extra 13.33%</em></strong></p><p>Now, as your crit bonus increases, the likelihood of falling in this min-limiter area decreases and eventually converges to zero, so this does not even apply much anymore (if at all).</p><p>Okay, back to the point, arcanemundi is right and his graphs illustrate the point very well.  I had posted this in the item and mechanics thread a while back to the same effect and timetravelling said they we looking into it....many months ago:</p><p>Here are my calculations, <strong><em>using actual spell values for the heal amounts to illustrate the upcoming problem</em></strong></p><p><cite>Hene wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span><p><span>Now consider two equally geared healers </span>with<strong> 0% crit chance </strong>and 0 ability mod.</p><p>A <span style="color: #00ffff;">druid's</span> lv 78 master <span style="color: #00ffff;">single target HoT</span> heals for 583.5 per tick for up to 6 ticks.  This means, it can heal for a <span style="color: #00ffff;">maximum of 3501 hp</span> assuming complete utilization.</p><p>A <span style="color: #ff0000;">shaman's</span> lv 78 master <span style="color: #ff0000;">single target ward</span> can prevent up to <span style="color: #ff0000;">2100</span> damage.</p><p>Because HoTs are less efficient,<strong><span style="color: #00ff00;"> the druid's heal does 67% more</span>.</strong>  This means that HoTs are less efficient and gain an extra 67% in maximum healing power to offset this. </p><p>Now consider these two equally geared healers who have<strong> 100% crit chance and 0% crit bonus</strong>:</p><p>A <span style="color: #00ffff;">druid's</span> lv 78 master <span style="color: #00ffff;">single target HoT</span> heals for 583.5 per tick for up to 6 ticks, multiplied by 1.300 for a crit, this is 758.55 per tick for 6 ticks.  This means, it can heal for a <span style="color: #00ffff;">maximum of 4551.3 hp</span> assuming complete utilization.</p><p>A <span style="color: #ff0000;">shaman's</span> lv 78 master <span style="color: #ff0000;">single target ward</span> can prevent up to 2100*1.150 = <span style="color: #ff0000;">2415</span> damage.</p><p>Now,<strong> <span style="color: #00ff00;">a druid heal does 88.5% more</span></strong>.  Okay, so with the introduction of criticals, druids gained a little edge over shamans heal wise, okay, I guess that is fine and dandy, but it would make sense to preserve the previous ratio.</p><p>Now, with the addition of crit bonus, consider the equally geared healers with<strong> 100% crit chance and 100% crit bonus</strong>:</p><p>A <span style="color: #00ffff;">druid's</span> lv 78 master <span style="color: #00ffff;">single target HoT</span> heals for 583.5 per tick for up to 6 ticks, multiplied by 2.300 for a crit, this is 1342 per tick for 6 ticks.  This means, it can heal for a <span style="color: #00ffff;">maximum of 8052 hp</span> assuming complete utilization.</p> <p>A <span style="color: #ff0000;">shaman's</span> lv 78 master <span style="color: #ff0000;">single target ward</span> can prevent up to 2100*(1.150+0.500) = <span style="color: #ff0000;">3465</span> damage.</p><p>Now, with 100% crit bonus,<span style="font-size: medium;"><strong> <span style="color: #00ff00;">a druid heal does 132% more</span>.</strong></span> As you can see, <span style="font-size: medium;"><strong>as crit bonus increases,  shamans become less and less effective with respect to druids</strong></span>.  So as druids' heal ability increases, shamans get practically nothing.</p><p>As you can see, with the introduction of crits, the bonus percentage of a druid's heals gets significantly bolstered.  And with crit bonus, it truly blows away wards.</p></span></p></blockquote><p>This is an urgent issue that should be fixed ASAP imo.  This <strong><em>severely </em></strong>hurts shamans and wards when it comes to gear choices.  While potency is uncapped and that somewhat helps, because of the multiplicity of potency and crit bonus, wards are crippled relative to all other heal types....</p>

[snowli]

<p><cite>Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm a little nervous that if they do change crit bonus on wards the sheer size of group wards would make them do some knee-jerk and unnecessary nerf.</p></blockquote><p>uhm, like the massive mystic nerf last patch?</p>

[Malacha]

<p><cite>Hene wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Malachani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The thing is, we don't REALLY get less from crit bonus. There are posts that explain why, prior to crit bonus, wards got 1.15 instead of 1.3 crit multiplier. It has to do with heals having a range, and wards only having a single amount. Every time I try to explain it, I use too many words and confuse even myself, even tho I fully understand the concept. Something about applying the average crit amount a heal would do ((max+1) + (max*2)/2) to wards.</p></blockquote><p>This is not the case at all.  Rather, when a heal crits it <em>gains</em> ground, not loses ground with respect to wards...e.g. for a completely exaggerated example, consider a heal from 1000-2000 with an average of 1500:</p><p>after a 1.3 crit multiplier it ranges from originally 1300-2600 this has an average of 1950. Well with the max + 1 limiter, it now ranges from 2001-2600 with an adjusted average of about 2150 or so.</p><p>so before min-limiter and after crit: 1950 / 1500 = 130% exactly</p><p>after crit: 2150 / 1500 = 143.33% or an <strong><em>extra 13.33%</em></strong></p><p>Now, as your crit bonus increases, the likelihood of falling in this min-limiter area decreases and eventually converges to zero, so this does not even apply much anymore (if at all).</p></blockquote><p>Ok, now read what i said again. I didn't say it doesn't need fixing, I said the suggested fix is not what needs to be done. The equation for how crit bonus applies to wards needs to be reevaluated. The 1/2 is not working as it did work back when it was first implemented.</p>

[Hene]

<p><cite>Malachani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I didn't say it doesn't need fixing</p></blockquote><p>I never implied otherwise, I was just showing you how this is incorrect:</p><p><cite>Malachani wrote:</cite></p> <blockquote><p>The thing is, we don't REALLY get less from crit bonus</p></blockquote> <p><cite>Malachani wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I said the suggested fix is not what needs to be done. The equation for how crit bonus applies to wards needs to be reevaluated. The 1/2 is not working as it did work back when it was first implemented.</p></blockquote><p>Well what is the problem with the suggested fix, that makes you dislike it so?  And do you have any suggestion on <strong><em>how</em></strong> to change how crit bonus is applied to wards?</p>

[Banditman]

<p>The point is that Shaman right now are on the decreasing side of an equation that is continuing to gain momentum with each increase to the current itemization limits.  The more crit bonus and potency come into play, the farther and farther behind a Shaman will fall.</p>

[Notsovilepriest]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The point is that Shaman right now are on the decreasing side of an equation that is continuing to gain momentum with each increase to the current itemization limits.  The more crit bonus and potency come into play, the farther and farther behind a Shaman will fall.</p></blockquote><p>Atleast we gain full effectiveness from potency though, but with the overwhelming lean of itemization going towards crit bonus, we are going to keep falling unless something is done. I have no interest in being overpowered or anything, but honestly while gearing up in this expansion I want to feel like I'm gaining as much as the other healers, and just know down the road my class won't be in shambles because of an old mechanic screwing us over.</p>

[Hene]

<p><cite>Notsovilepriest@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The point is that Shaman right now are on the decreasing side of an equation that is continuing to gain momentum with each increase to the current itemization limits.  The more crit bonus and potency come into play, the farther and farther behind a Shaman will fall.</p></blockquote><p>Atleast we gain full effectiveness from potency though, but with the overwhelming lean of itemization going towards crit bonus, we are going to keep falling unless something is done. I have no interest in being overpowered or anything, but honestly while gearing up in this expansion I want to feel like I'm gaining as much as the other healers, and just know down the road my class won't be in shambles because of an old mechanic screwing us over.</p></blockquote><p>Directly, we get full potency, but because crit bonus is multiplied after potency is multiplied in, we actually see a significant decrease in potency's effectiveness...For a 1k heal and 50 crit bonus:0 Potency w/crit->1.8k (1.8/1 = 180% i.e. 80% gain from base heal value)10 Potency w/crit->1.98k (1.98/1 = 198% i.e. 98% gain from base heal value)100 Potency w/crit->3.6k (3.6/1 = 360% i.e. 260% gain from base heal value)For a 1k ward and 50 crit bonus:0 Potency w/crit->1.4k (1.4/1 = 140% i.e. 40% gain from base heal value)10 Potency w/crit->1.54k (1.54/1 = 154% i.e. 54% gain from base heal value)100 Potency w/crit->2.8k (2.8/1 = 280% i.e. 180% gain from base heal value)So from the first 10% potency a heal gets an additional 18% of its base heal value added while a ward only gets 14% of its base heal value added...this is with the exact same stats/gear/etc and not taking into account the differing base values...</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Exactly.  Crit bonus is the absolute last step in the calculation.  Therefore, because our crit bonus is halved, it has an impact on the effectiveness of every single piece of the equation.</p>

[Malacha]

<p><cite>Hene wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Malachani wrote:</span></p><blockquote><p>I said the suggested fix is not what needs to be done. The equation for how crit bonus applies to wards needs to be reevaluated. The 1/2 is not working as it did work back when it was first implemented.</p></blockquote><p>Well what is the problem with the suggested fix, that makes you dislike it so?  And do you have any suggestion on <strong><em>how</em></strong> to change how crit bonus is applied to wards?</p></blockquote><p>What part of "The equation for how crit bonus applies to wards needs to be reevaluated." is hard to understand. I don't know HOW, because I'm not a dev. I just know that before crit bonus was a stat on armor, it worked. Now that it is, its not working. Not my job to figure out the new calculation needed.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>There is no need to change the way crit bonus works for wards, no need at all.  There is nothing wrong with it.</p><p>Originally, crit bonus was set as it is for Wards because other healers were working with a range of numbers on their heal spells.  Where a Shaman got a Ward for a specific amount, every other healer got a range - 100 to 200 for instance.</p><p>So, when any other healer would "crit" their ward, it was very possible, even likely, that they would get a "crit" that was no better than a non-crit with a better base roll.</p><p>For instance, over a course of 10 rolls, another healer using that 100-200 spell might expect to get crits like:</p><p>201, 201, 201, 201, 225, 210, 250, 201, 242, etc</p><p>Thus, because a Shaman Ward would *always* crit for over the base amount, the crit bonus was lowered by .15 for a Ward.  The problem is, everyone (myself included, and even the devs) saw that as "half".  That's not what it was at all.</p><p>It was a reduction of .15 for a crit ward that (so we are told) led to have crit wards balanced against crit heals.</p><p>If they had simply continued in that manner, no one would be complaining.</p><p>For instance, my overall crit multiplier is around 1.95.  Now, if my Wards were crit'ing at 1.80, you know what?  I'd be ok with it.  I'd probably still mumble under my breath a little bit about it, but I'd get over it.  Unfortunately, that's not the case.</p><p>Instead of making the adjustment a simple subtract operation, it was put in as a divide operation.</p><p>To compare, the current mechanics applied to the original equation would actually have Wards "crit" for less than their maximum value.  Thus, we are continually losing ground to a poorly thought out equation as crit bonus continues to rise.</p>

[Tehom]

<p>I imagine they didn't change much of anything when they added crit bonus in regards to our wards. The equation was probably always that the benefit of critting was halved for us. Crit bonus just changed the value that they halved before applying it to us.</p><p>I think a reasonable solution like you've suggested is just to have the value of wards critting be .15 lower than that of native heals - so wards would always see some penalty, but that the relative difference would diminish as crit bonus increases, rather than create an increasingly large gulf between heals/wards.</p>

[snowli]

<p>It's a pretty simple fix really right now it's:</p><p>ward critbonus = critbonus/2</p><p>the formula just needs to be changed to</p><p>ward critbonus = critbonus-0.15</p><p>So we go back towards the orignal plan of sometimes wards get a 15% penalty not the current situation of wards ALWAYS get a 40-70% and growing penalty.</p>

[StaticLex]

<p>The ward system needs a total revamp to end this BS once and for all.</p><p>Wards should only absorb some percentage (60%?) of damage each time damage is dealt.  Shaman direct heals would need to be tweaked to make up for any lost heal power.  Crit bonus could be fully utilized and pairing a shaman with the other heal classes wouldn't be such a flaming joke.  The end.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>That would create an even bigger nightmare than we already have.  Every raid in the game would have to be adjusted.  Your change would force the rebalance of every single aspect of combat.</p><p>You think on that a minute, and ponder the mess created recently (and still unresolved) when only one aspect was tweaked - the removal of the potency cap.</p><p>I think it much more likely to simply fix the formula for crit Wards than to rebalance the entire game.</p><p>Maybe it's just me.</p>

[Malacha]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>There is no need to change the way crit bonus works for wards, no need at all.  There is nothing wrong with it.</p><p>Originally, crit bonus was set as it is for Wards because other healers were working with a range of numbers on their heal spells.  Where a Shaman got a Ward for a specific amount, every other healer got a range - 100 to 200 for instance.</p><p>So, when any other healer would "crit" their ward, it was very possible, even likely, that they would get a "crit" that was no better than a non-crit with a better base roll.</p><p>For instance, over a course of 10 rolls, another healer using that 100-200 spell might expect to get crits like:</p><p>201, 201, 201, 201, 225, 210, 250, 201, 242, etc</p><p>Thus, because a Shaman Ward would *always* crit for over the base amount, the crit bonus was lowered by .15 for a Ward.  The problem is, everyone (myself included, and even the devs) saw that as "half".  That's not what it was at all.</p><p>It was a reduction of .15 for a crit ward that (so we are told) led to have crit wards balanced against crit heals.</p><p>If they had simply continued in that manner, no one would be complaining.</p><p>For instance, my overall crit multiplier is around 1.95.  Now, if my Wards were crit'ing at 1.80, you know what?  I'd be ok with it.  I'd probably still mumble under my breath a little bit about it, but I'd get over it.  Unfortunately, that's not the case.</p><p>Instead of making the adjustment a simple subtract operation, it was put in as a divide operation.</p><p>To compare, the current mechanics applied to the original equation would actually have Wards "crit" for less than their maximum value.  Thus, we are continually losing ground to a poorly thought out equation as crit bonus continues to rise.</p></blockquote><p>See, I knew someone who was much more mathematically inclined would figure out the equation =P</p>

[Hene]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>There is no need to change the way crit bonus works for wards, no need at all.  There is nothing wrong with it.</p><p>Originally, crit bonus was set as it is for Wards because other healers were working with a range of numbers on their heal spells.  Where a Shaman got a Ward for a specific amount, every other healer got a range - 100 to 200 for instance.</p><p>So, when any other healer would "crit" their ward, it was very possible, even likely, that they would get a "crit" that was no better than a non-crit with a better base roll.</p><p>For instance, over a course of 10 rolls, another healer using that 100-200 spell might expect to get crits like:</p><p>201, 201, 201, 201, 225, 210, 250, 201, 242, etc</p><p>Thus, because a Shaman Ward would *always* crit for over the base amount, the crit bonus was lowered by .15 for a Ward.  The problem is, everyone (myself included, and even the devs) saw that as "half".  That's not what it was at all.</p><p>It was a reduction of .15 for a crit ward that (so we are told) led to have crit wards balanced against crit heals.</p><p>If they had simply continued in that manner, no one would be complaining.</p><p>For instance, my overall crit multiplier is around 1.95.  Now, if my Wards were crit'ing at 1.80, you know what?  I'd be ok with it.  I'd probably still mumble under my breath a little bit about it, but I'd get over it.  Unfortunately, that's not the case.</p><p>Instead of making the adjustment a simple subtract operation, it was put in as a divide operation.</p><p>To compare, the current mechanics applied to the original equation would actually have Wards "crit" for less than their maximum value.  Thus, we are continually losing ground to a poorly thought out equation as crit bonus continues to rise.</p></blockquote><p>I don't see how this is a disadvantage...from 1.3 crit bonus they get more than 30% gain in healing ability...</p>

[StaticLex]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>That would create an even bigger nightmare than we already have.  Every raid in the game would have to be adjusted.  Your change would force the rebalance of every single aspect of combat.</p><p>You think on that a minute, and ponder the mess created recently (and still unresolved) when only one aspect was tweaked - the removal of the potency cap.</p><p>I think it much more likely to simply fix the formula for crit Wards than to rebalance the entire game.</p><p>Maybe it's just me.</p></blockquote><p>The way wards work is stupid and broken beyond this silly little crit bonus flap.  And it's certainly not <em>my</em> fault they made the mistake way back when the game launched and have never bothered to correct it.  As far as rebalancing every single aspect of combat, that is a gross exaggeration.  Various mobs and mechanics would undoubtedly need tuning but it's by far the better route than patching garbage design year after year after year.  In fact, I'd be surprised if it doesn't become some sort of ultimate roadblock to new mechanics sooner or later anyway.</p>

[Tehom]

<p>It would also very possibly completely destroy the shaman classes. No thanks.</p>

[Notsovilepriest]

<p><cite>StaticLex wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>That would create an even bigger nightmare than we already have.  Every raid in the game would have to be adjusted.  Your change would force the rebalance of every single aspect of combat.</p><p>You think on that a minute, and ponder the mess created recently (and still unresolved) when only one aspect was tweaked - the removal of the potency cap.</p><p>I think it much more likely to simply fix the formula for crit Wards than to rebalance the entire game.</p><p>Maybe it's just me.</p></blockquote><p>The way wards work is stupid and broken beyond this silly little crit bonus flap.  And it's certainly not <em>my</em> fault they made the mistake way back when the game launched and have never bothered to correct it.  As far as rebalancing every single aspect of combat, that is a gross exaggeration.  Various mobs and mechanics would undoubtedly need tuning but it's by far the better route than patching garbage design year after year after year.  In fact, I'd be surprised if it doesn't become some sort of ultimate roadblock to new mechanics sooner or later anyway.</p></blockquote><p>I seriously can't even fathom your logic at all</p>

[Arcanemundi]

<p>Another way to look at this <span style="text-decoration: underline;">growing</span> problem is to imagine the healing difference at end game as a gear stat on your armor.  How would all you Shaman feel if the Druids and Clerics had a breast plate that had a +50% to all heals set bonus, and the Shaman got no set bonus?</p>

[Odys]

<p><cite>Arcanemundi@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Another way to look at this <span style="text-decoration: underline;">growing</span> problem is to imagine the healing difference at end game as a gear stat on your armor.  How would all you Shaman feel if the Druids and Clerics had a breast plate that had a +50% to all heals set bonus, and the Shaman got no set bonus?</p></blockquote><p>That's a bit exagerated since wards are not 100% of our healing power, transcendance is sometimes accouting for 30% or more, especially if i not in the MT group. But your image is still mostly correct. What totally blows is that devellopers do not seem to care. Apparently since we do parse well (due to mecanic), and since wards may be requied to avoid the MT to be one shot our HPS may well suck totally.</p>