A couple of months ago, I wrote a guide concerning the Heal- and Defensemanagement for the german wardencommunity.
To celebrate our union I finally took my time and translated the guide into english.
I am afraid that it will be to much to ask to correct any spelling/grammar mistakes I made in this wall of text. So instead I would like to ask you to bear with me and help me out, if you manage to find a spot that is really breaking the guide.
I sincerely hope that my translation effort is worth the information that I gathered over the time and will help/entertain our warden beginners and experts alike in this particular topic.
Be that as it may, I humbly hope that you can still enjoy the guide!
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First things first...
I have tried to write the text as objectively and comprehensible as possible, but due to the topic-complexity and the use of highlevel gambits such as conviction in addition to the masteries, the guide isn't suited for wardens below level 60.
I assume that at this point everybody here knows how to handle his warden on his own. So what can I contribute to your knowledge to be worth the readingtime?
With this guide, I am trying to cover the following questions:
- When should I prefer block/parry/evade [aka. BPE]-Defensebuffs over Hots?
- How many and which Hots should I use?
- At which mobquantity should I switch between AoE-leeches and Singleheals?
The values for the calculation-sheets are based on my own poor Wardentoon, who typically equips 5 blue + 1 yellow + 1 red traits.
Since everyone has his/her own unique equipment and preferences, it is quite certain that your values differ from mine.
With the goal of keeping it as simple as possible, I didn't include outgoing/incoming healrates or resistances. Keep that in mind when you come across some healingnumbers, which may look a little off.
Lets get started by reaching a common informationlevel from which we can continue to discuss.
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Following sheet shows the gambits that a warden uses to heal himself directly.
The total powercost is a sum of the costs to build each gambitsymbol plus the triggergambit itself.
Allowing a consistent comparison of the powerconsumption, the use of masteries is mentioned, but not included in the calculations, if not told otherwise.
As you already know, the warden is not limited by skillcooldowns but by time and power constraints.
This concerns the defensive- and healaspect aswell, because the given buffs only last for a couple of seconds and thus need to be refreshed periodically.
Characteristically the healgambits last up to 18 seconds, moraleleecher 16 seconds and the smaller parry/evasion buffs 20 seconds until they vanish.
These are a typical time intervals in which a warden works his magic and configure his cycle according to the situational needs.
Of course the mobs with their nasty disarming / silence effect or simple movement don't do us a favor and neither does the fellowshipgroup or raid in most cases.
And so practical experience shows, that each 16-20 seconds of a fight can not be played the same as the last.
Nevertheless it is still possible to form some imperatives that can improve our survivability chances.
When should I prefer BPE-Defense over Hots and which gambits should I use?
The third gambitsheet shows a wide range of Gambits which benefit our BPE values in some way or another.
Wardens are limited by the 15,0% cap. A BPE value above this mark only increases the partial mitigations, which is undoubtedly still usefull in most cases.
One of this gambits distinguishes itself from the rest by being superior in length and gain in BE-value: Shield Mastery.
As a matter of fact, Shield Mastery is so potent, that I forcefully build and sustain it in every mobencounter worth mentioning, as long as the mob doesn't deal tactital damage.
However there are other gambits, which we should take a look at.
Another sheet point out their (marginal) contribution to our BPE ratings:
The data represents my warden in raidgear, but in unbuffed condition.
Additional buffs like middleearth + parry (Captain) or protection (Guard) push our BPE amount up to an already appreciable level and you might consider to shift your priority a little off the defensive buffs towards to the drainer and healer gambits.
But more on that subject later.
As you can see above, a way of the shield traited warden achieves decent 15% block and evasioncap, simply by using Shield Mastery and the partials aren't that low either.
Parry remains as an improvement issue. Wall of Steel closes this gap as our only given choice. Unfortunately Wall of Steel lasts only for 20 seconds, requires 4 gambitsymbols and - aside form the damageoutput - doesn't build a lot of threat.
Bottom line is, that you sacrifice time, which you could use to gain extra threat or spend in a healing worth of 945 morale (Celebration of Skill, without inc/out healing).
How can you compare an healingamount with a mitigationincrease?
A major coefficient to help us to come to a solution is the incoming damage.
The basic idea is to sum up the whole damage you suffer over a timeframe of 20 seconds, then multiply the amount by the percent of gained mitigation and compare the result with the healamount of Celebration of Skill.
[total dmg in 20 sec.] * [parrybonus through Wall of Steel] = [statisticaly avoided dmg]
If the statistically avoided damage is higher than 945 morale, you should spend the given time by building the Wall of Steel and vice versa.
for example: 35.000 * 2,8% = 980 > 945 -> WoS
This equation is of course very vague at best and you can involve further variable like partial parry mitigation, inc/out/crit healing, legendary traits and so on, to state the actual fightbehavior more precisely. But due to the lack of time to spend on mathematical excursion in the middle of a fight I am satisfied by the simple equation at hand.
The more damage an opponent is able to push through, that could have been avoided, the more important it gets to rather maintain a high BPE rate, instead of a high healcycle.
Being just a percent chance to trigger, BPE has still its own uncertainty factor and pale in comparison to the 100% chance of selfheals.
On the one hand, it is possible that you don't parry for the next 20 seconds which you could have used to heal more than 945 morale. On the other hand you might get lucky and parry hits which easely could have been some devestating critical hits and 945ish morale would be nothing more than a drop in a bucket.
You should consider this, if it comes down to a decisionpoint.
The advantage of Shield Mastery and Wall of Steel has been clarified. Let us focus our attention to Dance of War.
The graphic above shows that DoW in combination with Shield Mastery and thus evasion at 15% cap only merely improves the partial evasion mitigation.
For this very reason I primarily use DoW to transfer threat from the group without toe-to-toe contact with the enemy, if conviction is already running that is.
From this it follows that Dance of War is an outstanding choice, when it comes down to combining threat with defense.
That leaves us with the two ramaining def-gambits.
Shield Up = waste of time, because it has the same effect as Shield Mastery, but lasts just half as long and doesn't stack with it.
Defensive Strike = I am biased on this one. If you think that you need the additional partial block, then this is your way to achieve it.
I hardly use this in its current state. A situation in which I am close to the Durchest tankswitch comes to mind, but that is about it. Since Orion proposed his potency idea, I guess I have to acquire taste for this gambit in particular.
That is everything I can tell you about the defensive gambits.
One chapter finished, two more to go!
In my opinion this is an underestimated question, which many wardens tend to solve on a gut level without being concerned about possible improvements.
As a matter of fact healmanagement hits the core of our issues as much as any other gambitaspect.
On the one hand in some situations, it is very crucial to quickly build and sustain a huge amount of selfheal. On the other hand the powerpool doesn't allow us to keep this behaviour up forever. The following chapter discusses ways, on how you can find a compromise to satisfy both sides as mush as possible.
A short glance at the given healgambits reveal another issue:
There are way to many gambits to keep all of them in a 18-20 seconds window alive at once.
So in case of a doubt, which gambits should I leave untouched?
The morale per power rate suggests, that two gambits are out of the ordinary: Impressive Flourish and Warcry.
While Impressive Flourish never found its spot in my personal gambitrotation, Warcry is a entirely different story.
Warcry doesn't shine with a lot of healing, but like Dance of War, with a combination of two achieved goals: AoE threat + heal.
Five healgambits remains, which can be sustained in a 18 second interval, if you deem it to be necessary:
Persevere; Safeguard; Celebration of Skill; Restoration; Conviction
Counting all the involved gambitsymbols + trigger, you have to push 24 keys in 18 seconds in order to adhere to the cycle.
The players behind the keyboard most likely can manage to do so, but the wardenchar on the screen is slowed down, because executed animationtime take its toll.
We can still accomplish the cycle nevertheless by using masteries.
Thanks to Conviction we have not two [1+2][2+1] but four [2+3][3+2] masteries at our disposal.
Furthermore the use of masteries has a positive impact on the powerconsumption.
I would like to draw your attention back to the mainquestion of this chapter that still remains unanswered.
The already mentioned morale per power rate indicates, that we can divide the healgambits into 3 powergroups.
Persevere distinguish itself from the rest with a remarkable ratio of 5,02 morale/power. It is followed by the center span containing Restoration 3,93 m/k; Celebration of Skill 3,86 m/k and Safeguard with 3,84 m/k.
Conviction is - although +15% skilled - with 3,53 m/k the bottom of the table when it comes down to simple selfheals. But as you already know there is a huge additional benefit in grouphealing and threattransfer that amortize the increased powercost of Conviction.
In theory, you can reach an optimum in powerconsumption by using as few power-saving gambits as for the given situation required.
The practical application is far more stressful and theory can't be applied that easy.
Sudden or unexpected moraledrops, for instance, put us wardens in zugzwang to push our maxhealrate out as fast as humanly possible, ignoring the proposed powersavings in favor of survivability.
This opens the question on how you can accelerate your healgambits from 0 to the desired amount?
Lets stay with the rather extreme case that all 5 heals are needed.
The invested work needed to gain maxheal stays the same and thus doesn't change regardless of the different possible sequences of gambitroations.
Furthermore once the targeted heal lifecycle is running and successfully maintained (which is in case of 5 healgambits quite a workload), the healmagnitude stays the same also.
Bottom line is that I am just talking about the very first 18 seconds, which look insignificant at first sight granted, but still offers an improvementpoint nontheless.
Another illustration points out, how important the right gambitorder can be:
Before you run off, let me explain this choice of graphic in a few sentences.
Because of the fact that I didn't include the masteries yet, the x-axis serves as the only indicator of time, since you still theoretically need to push 24 keys in 18 seconds.
I am aware that this maneuver isn't possible without the mastery shortcuts.
As the y-axis states already, it represents the average amount of moralegain for every 3 seconds.
This stepfunction graphic seems to be flawed, so why do I dare to punish you with it?
The whole healsubject from this point on gets a little messy und partially hard to follow. The german wardenforum discussed the healorder elaborately, without coming to a final conclusion, but handpicked approximations through comparison.
My approach is now to go step by step from the functiongraph above to more detailed one.
That being said, lets get back to the illustration and to the information that it offers.
Both stepfunctions discribe different ways to hit the healamount of total 646 morale every 3 second.
The blue function pepresents the idea to push the short gambits at the early stage and postpone the large ones to a later point of time. The red function represents the opposite approach.
blue = Persevere -> Safeguard -> Celebration of Skill -> Restoration -> Conviction
red = Conviction -> Restoration -> Celebration of Skill -> Safeguard -> Persevere
So what does this graph tell you in the end?
Without the help of masteries, the best way to hit maxheal is to start with the short gambits first, like the blue function demonstrates.
The significant advantage can be seen in the first 7 keystrokes:
While red wearisomly tries to get off with the first higher gambit, blue had already finished Persevere und builded up Safeguard close to triggerpoint in addition to the second Persevere pulse, which should be on its way.
On that note please keep in mind that the hots don't actually pulse synchronously to each other in a perfect 3 second wave, like the diagram may falsely suggest, but each one on its own.
The difference between one late bigger hot versus 2-3 smaller ones may already be the reason, why a warden still stands or bites the dust.
Now the time has come to finally introduce masteries into the equation:
As you can see I am now able to add a timescale to the graph, presuming the need of 18 seconds to sustain 5 hots at the same time.
If you come to think of it, it is rather better to work in a 19-20 seconds window, because the last healimpulse triggers on the 18th second and the first one in the moment you refresh your gambit.
This task can be done quite well with the assistance of plugins such as Pengoros BuffBars.
Now what about the content of the graph...
The pink function displays my former ordinary healing rotation.
Although this order is easy to memorize and plays conveniently(at least for me it does), it turned out not to be the best way to achieve a fast moralregeneration.
Assuming the timeless effort to build up masteries (instant, no animation worth mentioning) the time the pink function hits maxheal is a useable reference, on when the 18 seconds are over and the gambit routine starts all over again.
As a approximate comparison, take a look at the two grey stepfunctions below. These functions shows, how far you can relatively to the time go, without the help of masteries.
(24 keystrokes = 2*4 keys by masteries + 16 manual keys)
I guess the difference is self-explanatory.
So whats up with the right acceleration order and masteries?
The good news is, that the first step is mandatory and always the same as long as the specific masteries are not occupied by other gambits:
Build up Conviction with both masteries and fire away.
In a singletarget environment there is no better solution, than to start off on the right foot, with one of the best given wardenheals and threatmanager in a blink of an eye and work from there on.
Positioning the four other hots and the masteries is the tricky part.
The red/blue stepfunctions taught us, that speed is of the essence here and in that conclusion, including the remaining two masteries in the very first one or two gambits, seems like a wise decision.
Everything else from here on is pure personal preference.
Every combinationsolution, we worked out, had its own pros and cons. Some gambitrotations worked quite well as starters but suffered greatly in speed from the 8th second until the 18th. Others seemed to suffocate at the beginning, but paned out at middle to late stages just fine.
A possible way to come up with a personal solution, is to take a look at how you traited you javelin. If you traited Restoration up to 15%, you should consider working with a
rotation. Or even set Restoration at the first place, if you think about spending two Masteries in it.
Our german wardencommunity came up with a lot of potential ideas, like building an overall index by summing the healvalues for every second up. On that note I would like to thank the former german community for the lovely discussions we had.
But I failed to put the conditions in an appropriate function to solve the problem once and for all.
And thus I am sincerely sorry that I couldn't close this mathematical gap until this very day, leaving you to the task of finding the best routine for yourself.
Well this is it about the selfhealing topic. Come to think of it, it is quite a load of text for simply telling you to heal adequately to the situation and use masteries early ^^.
Nevertheless I hope, that I could provide new insight into this particular complex subject and animate you to take a closer look at your healrotation.
At which mobquantity should I switch between AoE-leeches and Singleheals?
Every warden survived through countless situations, where he/she was surrounded by a countless mass of foes, that no other class could have survived to tell a tale about it.
As you may already guessed, this is possible due to our AoE-moraledraining gambits.
Fierce Resolve, Resolution and Exultation of Battle are at our disposal and two of them are the maingambits, which I would like to cover in this topic in detail.
Being the solely available burstheal, Resolution needs a special treatment.
Resolution is a neat adjustmentgambit, if you are in need of giving your moralepool an extra boost and lets leave it simply at that.
In every battle against multiple mobs you might find yourself in the situation, that counterintuitively your morale keeps droping with the decreasing amount of mobs around you.
And at some yet undefined turningpoint AoE-leeches lose their effectivenes and a shield traited warded has to swtich from leeches back to single selfheals.
But where is this turningpoint exactly?
Core content of this topic deals with this question in particular. This means that I will try to compare both Fierce Resolve and Exultation of Battle with their selfheal counterparts.
The first intuition would be to compare the gambits with the equal gambitlength. In this case Fierce Resolve (3 symbols + 1 trigger) with Safeguard (3 + 1) and Exultation of Battle (5 + 1) with either Restoration (5 + 1) or Conviction (5 + 1)
But taking a closer look at the bahaviour of the gambits reveals an issue, that prevents this equation from being this trivial.
AoE leecher merely last for 16 seconds and tick only 5 times. Analog to it, selfheals last for 18 seconds and offers 7 hots-impulses in their lifecycle.
Does the equal buildlength justify the equation or should I give the duration and/or impulse a more major loading.
On the one hand, shorter Gambitlifecycle implies a higher effort to maintain the morale-drainer. After all two additional rotationseconds are not ignored lightly.
On the other hand, lengthened rotation by two seconds means, that the calculated overall healrate is reached two seconds later.
So how does someone outweigh the discrepancy?
I for one couldn't answer the open priorityquestens for myself clearly and went back to my initial gutfeeling.
It is crucial to remember this relationconflict and the pros and cons of each side, while we continue to tread through this subject lightly.
Speaking of which I still have to burden you with further information, before it comes down to the actual comparison.
The coming up sheetvalues are picked from the skill descriptions.
I can't stress out enough, that outgoing and incoming healrates are still not accounted for.
In combatcircumstances the impact of consequence is significant:
With the aid of gear, legendary javelintraits and buffs, the overall healingincome is way higher, than described in the sheets.
You might think, that this applies to morale-leech aswell, but in my experience, the leechvalue is inferior to the sheetnumbers, because the transfered morale is in direct correlation with the lightdamage dealt to the drained mob and their resistance to it.
Keyword resistance leads to another downside:
Leechskills can be withstand by each individual foe and thus possibly don't transfer morale for the time being.
This means, that even if you were surrounded by five foes and played a leechgambit, it wouldn't automatically imply, that you transfer morale from every one of them.
Alas it is only logical, that dead foes don't transfer morale anylonger.
Selfheals on the other hand are not bound to the enemy. Resistance doesn't matter, aswell as actually dealing damage, while activating the healgambit.
In the special case of Conviction, you are not even forced to stand near an enemy. Combatstatus and masteries is all you need.
Needless to say is the independence of enemylife. If he drops to the ground, you will still keep your hots, until they finish their 18 second cycle.
Bottom line is, that all things considered, selfheals seem to be a much more solid way to heal oneself. And yet leechgambits have their well earned benefits, besides the obious AoE-threat as the following sheets show:
A glance at the "morale per power" column reveals, that despite of the higher powerconsumption, the leechgambits pan out at a certain quantity of foes.
In relation to the typical selfheal powerconsumption data, a value around 3,50 m/p starts to be attractive.
This lower limit is reached by Fierce Resolve with 5 and Exultation of Battle with 4 foes more than adequately.
The wide spectrum of available masteries decrease the powercost furthermore. Solely Exultation of Battle involves 4 possible Mastery-uses that you can adjust to the combatsituation and thus improve your flexiblity.
Lets get finally down to the comparisonbusiness.
With the already mentioned complex of problems regarding the direct comparison at hand, it is still safe to say, that Exultation of Battle overwhelms Conviction aswell as Restoration, if at least four active leechtargets are available.
Neither the out/inc heal or the mob-resistance can close the gap.
This counts for the gained morale,
1530 in 16 sec (EoB) > 1127 in 18 sec (Conv) > 1092 in 18 sec (Resto)
aswell as for the powerproportions,
4,46 (EoB) > 3,93 (Resto) > 3,53 (Conv)
But as you can see, all the EoB advantages diminish, as soon as you leech off 3 targets. Both totally gained moral (1147,5) and morale/power (3,35) lose their attractiveness.
It is considerably more complicated to distinguish the turningpoint, where - from pure healing perspecive - the use of Fierce Resolve doesn't make sense anylonger.
The transition between the leechamount of 4 to 6 targets is somewhat more fluid and requires a closer look.
It is likely, that the changeover from Fierce Resolve to Safeguarg have to be around 4 or 5 leechtargets.
Another stepfunction illustrates the gained moralrate in relation to time:
Once more I feel the urge to clarify, that these values doesn't represent the final ones in an actual battle.
Neither bonus or handicaps are included.
The red function, representing a 5 target leech, seems to dominate everything from start till end of the lifecycle.
The relation between the 4 target leech and Safeguard is highly ambiguous. Both functions exchange places frequently as they go through the timeframe.
Even considering all pros and cons of selfheals versus leeches the answer stays contentsensitive.
If you have trouble keeping threat off your fellowship, you should prefer Fierce Resolve over Safeguard.
If you are looking for a secure and more solid way of regenerating morale, or if you have safeguard traited on your javelin, safeguard would be your prefered choice.
Now here we are at last. I hope, I did manage to write down a direct equation, describing in detail the efficiency and difference aspects. And also could help you verify or realign your current priorityranking concerning the heal and leechmanagement.
All is left to mention is, that you know best for yourself, what playstyle suites you to fulfill your task.
Although I confronted leechgambits with direct heals to find out where the given time is spend right, it is still very reasonable to combine both particular gambits together. Be it as of threat, masteries cooldown or other reasons.
The combination of Conviction and Exultation of Battle is a prime example - I leave both gambits active, if it comes down to dealing with multiple foes.
Some concluding words
Congratulations and thank you for reading through all the text.
The gathered knowledge is based on two years of Wardenplaying.
It is really not that easy to collect all bits of information from the past time, not to mention of writing it down in english, even if it is reduced to the heal- and defensemanagement.
I hope, that I could pass my point of view along and that you could find something new worth knowing.
I am aware of the fact, that you don't need such a rather mathematical biased approach to be a formidable warden.
Especially Wardenbeginners shouldn't feel discouraged, but be openminded of what they can - but don't have to - expect of dealing with at the endgame.
In this spirit, I would like to wish the wardencommunity best of luck and success in refining and perfect your skills.
Very nice. This confirms what a lot of people have already assumed (leeches gain effectiveness at 4ish targets).
One thing I also noticed is that safeguard fared as well as it did. Was the power cost of safeguard adjusted at some point? I thought it offered a poor heals/power ratio.
Something I'd like to see would be boss parses, and from that we could draw conclusions on the effectiveness of avoidance vs. Mitigation vs. self heals.
It was a good read. Sure there were a few language oopsies, but most of them were formatting issues, not english ones (ie. 2 words become 1).
Would say for me personally on self heals, I go conviction, restoration, persevere, celebration (I leave out safeguard but may have to go take another look if they adjusted the power cost on it to be inline with the others) and I lead with the first two because I use masteries to build them.
As to boss fights (BG and OD only), my incoming damage ranges from 200 to 680 (Frothmar standing in the water the whole time). I have always been a proponent of heals vs BPE skills first for much the same reasons as you have stated above. Take a WoS on a 300 DPS boss (pretty typical) and you get a measly 180 morale saved on average (I rounded up to 3% for easy of computation). Even looking at shield mastery, you may be surprised at the numbers as remember, while it lasts longer, it has a very long animation.
My 2 coppers to the equation and thank you for taking the time to generate the numbers to help the discussion be on a factual basis.
+1 cooky for Pabo. Way to make an entrance! I think you shattered the record for longest Warden post on these forums by several thousand words. But it was worth the read.
A few thoughts:
I generally tend to work the HoTs into my rotation before maximum timing efficiency become a critical concern. Therefore, a lot of the conclusions around the best healing rotations only really apply to situations in which every second can mean the difference between victory or defeat.
Conviction should probably be continuously pulsing in group scenarios anyway, so don't really worry about it as part of your healing rotation, unless you're soloing.
Morale-per-power is an informative statistic, but as you mentioned, not particularly useful in scenarios which require maximum healing. I already loved Persevere, however, and this will only reinforce that.
I disagree with you about Dance of War. I treat it much like we both treat Shield-Strike - an extra buff that's only useful in a bare minimum of cases. Conviction has the same leech, and despite the extra builder, actually procs faster than DoW. Therefore, in my opinion, it's better to use another Conviction over DoW in every situation except when you need extra partial evade.
The most important piece of information in this post, I think, regards the relative benefits of using a buff, HoT, or AoE morale leech. Understanding that core dilemma will help Wardens push their toons to the limit. One additional thing to remember in this equation is that stuns, silences, disarms, and the like cannot be healed by Hots or morale leeches. Therefore, when fighting mobs using these attacks, capping BPE is often the best decision, even if the damage reduction equation favors self-heals.
All in all, a nice contribution. Thank you, and welcome!
It was a good read. Sure there were a few language oopsies, but most of them were formatting issues, not english ones (ie. 2 words become 1).
More of a linguistic issue. He mentioned being a part of the German warden community, and the German language is notorious for creating long compound words.
Anyway, this is a great in-depth study, thanks for the charts! I too am surprised how well Safeguard did, I remember someone else posting charts like this a while back, and Safeguard had the worst morale/power ratio by far, so much as to be considered useless.
I would say maybe the OP had the -safeguard power legacy on his weapon, but that would affect Celebration and Restoration as well, so I don't think that matters here. Maybe they did just improve the gambit.
. One additional thing to remember in this equation is that stuns, silences, disarms, and the like cannot be healed by Hots or morale leeches. Therefore, when fighting mobs using these attacks, capping BPE is often the best decision, even if the damage reduction equation favors self-heals.
I disagree with this point. If you have you self heals up when you get stunned, your heals will most likely be healing you for the full duration of then stun, so your heals would be helping However once stunned your BPE wont help at all, it is my understanding that we don't BPE while stunned. It may stop you from getting stunned, but if you are stunned if you have self heals up you will be much safer.
It is most likely a language issue. In german, you can combine two logically coherent nouns together to one word with ease. Even "most likely" can be translated into "höchstwahrscheinlich".
I have to restrain myself from repeating this kind of mistake again.
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I was intrigued by the repeatedly mentioned Safeguard topic and went on verifying my results, which were tainted by a Shield Carving and "Efficient Shieldwork" class trait, but not by the Safeguard power legacy.
Although as stated correctly, this would have affected every involved gambit at the same magnitude.
My original sheet data is about a half year old.
Maybe the Safeguard power cost assumption comes of being a neightbour to outstanding Persevere or the trigger power cost itself looks dissuasive?
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I am not a Hots-zealot.
I was one of the first wardens eager to try the new relics for a partial mitigation build and kept Extraordinary Rune of Courage slotted, until True Rune of the Two Trees were intruduced to our server.
Although I tend to present selfheals as a formidable solution, they have their mathematical downsides aswell, if you completely ignore BPE for the sake of additional hots.
In my opinion, especially in cooperation with dedicated healing classes the overall incoming hots heal, that is overhealed (selfheals running while at 100% morale) is an equal waste of time as much as BPE buffs, that never trigger an aviodance, while they last and has to be accounted for in any detailed equation.
So even HoTs don't live in a happy perfect world and I consider this, when I manage my spare time.
===
As I mentioned before, I tend to use Dance of War, if Conviction is already running. I see no point in refreshing one Hot over and over again, if I could use the time to buff evasion.
I like to work with both threat transfer gambits, when it comes down to keeping CCable mobs by myself, while I am bound to a specific location (front AoE hitter troll in focus while some off target trashmob accidentally wanders of to a distant raidmember).
But its just me and more of a threat management reason. I can see that you consider a few partial percentage of not being worthy of your time.
===
I don't know this one for sure, but I think that not every stun/silence/disarm attack can be avoided by BPE per se. Apart from the time counting debuffs that can be potted, there are stuns like from the undead aridmarin guys (sorry don't know the exact term) who stuns you with a (tactical?) beam for an extended period of time. So in this particular situation it might be still better to precautionary nurse your selfheal to overcome the unavoidable stuntime.
===
The need of a quick selfheal acceleration is debatable.
Some typical situation I might think of, is attempting some heavy hitter solo while I am forced to moralesurf. Some nasty critical hit is enough reason to fire everything I've got to get back to the targeted morale safezone.
Or imagine an enemy that stuns you for about 15 seconds and almost every buff / hot you build up so far is gone.
Of course it is not likely to need all 5 hots at the same time. I prefer to think of this extreme case to be more of a priority order, depending on the goal you desire (power vs. time).
One additional thing to remember in this equation is that stuns, silences, disarms, and the like cannot be healed by Hots or morale leeches. Therefore, when fighting mobs using these attacks, capping BPE is often the best decision, even if the damage reduction equation favors self-heals.
Not correct
1) if you are stunned, you are unable to BPE, so buffing that is useless
2) if you are silenced, you can still have all 4 single hot on you and refresh them
3) if you are disarmed, it gets hard ... you cant renew your heals and you are unable to parry
After that, in most times it is better to just have your hots running.
I was intrigued by the repeatedly mentioned Safeguard topic and went on verifying my results, which were tainted by a Shield Carving and "Efficient Shieldwork" class trait, but not by the Safeguard power legacy.
Although as stated correctly, this would have affected every involved gambit at the same magnitude.
Maybe the Safeguard power cost assumption comes of being a neightbour to outstanding Persevere or the trigger power cost itself looks dissuasive?
I think the power cost assumption on Safeguard comes from the trigger costs, to be honest. i'm sure i recall an analysis ages ago by someone (LagunaD? Banaticus?) that looked at Morale per Power costs using only trigger costs.
that said: all of this analysis, and in particular the HoT analysis, involves no use of Masteries - which radically change the M/P values, and may give different results.
having just logged to check, Masteries cost 50 Power:
so Masteried Persevere is 61 Power total (for 8.7 M/P) ;
Safeguard could be done for 134 Power (6.2 M/P);
CoS for 146 Power total (6.5 M/P);
Resolution for 246 Power total ( Sh-Sp; Sh-Fi; QR; Sp-Sh; trigger) (4.5 M/P)
Conviction for 309 Power total (Sh-Fi; Sh-Sp; QR; Fi-Sh; trigger) (3.6 M/P)
hmm, which suggests that Masteries give their largest benefits to 4 icon or less gambits - including Safeguard.
"Partial mitigation will no longer add to regular mitigation. Instead it will be multiplicative." - Graalx2
Amazifying! Absolutely fantastic! The Whole of Warden community most likely just jumped up from their seats to give you a glorious round of applause!
The information we've been suspecting, thinking of and speculating (and in some cases known) put into a lovely research, can't thank you (and the assistants) enough! I have to compliment the impressive data collection and the calculations, not to mention the time and effort to write down all the related information.
I'm gonna have to read this over and over again to learn everything it has to teach, and probably come back and refer into whatever part I've forgot later on
First of all, wow, I was working on a similar project myself, and already started doing some of the math, but even if I would have finished it, I would have never done it as good and complete as you have done here. Really awesome job!
I do think this thread deserves a sticky or at least a mention in the sticky thread.
Originally Posted by Pabo
If you have trouble keeping threat off your fellowship, you should prefer Fierce Resolve over Safeguard.
If you are looking for a secure and more solid way of regenerating morale, or if you have safeguard traited on your javelin, safeguard would be your prefered choice.
I do want to point out that fierce resolve does not have a threat component aside from the builders and the damage it does on the mobs.
Thilla Snowberry: Lvl 85 Hobbit Warden, Training and Tanking since 2009
Playing on Laurelin , member of E Voronwë
I do want to point out that fierce resolve does not have a threat component aside from the builders and the damage it does on the mobs.
This is a valid point!
As you stated correctly, without any additional threat, the only thing left is the advantage of dealing AoE damage instead of a singletarget common damage attack.
Not that much of a threat argument left and the more reason to switch to Safeguard at four living targets.
I disagree with this point. If you have you self heals up when you get stunned, your heals will most likely be healing you for the full duration of then stun, so your heals would be helping However once stunned your BPE wont help at all, it is my understanding that we don't BPE while stunned. It may stop you from getting stunned, but if you are stunned if you have self heals up you will be much safer.
My point wasn't that BPE helps you while stunned, my point is that BPE helps you avoid stuns in the first place.
If you are considering the damage equation the OP has presented to determine whether self-healing or BPE is numerically more efficient, then you should also be aware of potentially non-damaging attacks the equation doesn't account for. Some non-damaging attacks are unavoidable (or nearly so) due to the dictated mechanics of boss fights. However, when fighting trash mobs, almost all special attacks are rolled for just like normal attacks. That means Evading a stun attack prevents the stun. A HoT may heal the damage from the attack, but will not affect the stun component.
For this reason it is sometimes more useful to buff BPE than self-heal, especially early in fights with stuns/disarms/etc, even if the damage equation says otherwise. Of course, the best scenario is that you do both, but my comment was intended to help answer the same question as the OP's equation - when deciding between a buffing and healing gambit right now, which should you choose?
Wilkommen Pabo! That was some excellent analysis. +rep
I'll come back and reread this thread again. There's a lot to ponder here. Thanks!
One thought: the higher your innate b/p/e, the less benefit you'll get from Shield Mastery and the like. While leveling, you might have considerably lower innate b/p/e and might benefit more from self buffs.
AW: When should I prefer BPE-Defense over Hots and which gambits should I use?
I rarely visited our EU forums, so this completely escaped my notice until now. Thanks a lot for posting it once again here!
Originally Posted by Pabo
Defensive Strike = I am biased on this one. If you think that you need the additional partial block, then this is your way to achieve it.
I like to use defensive strike in boss fights when I have shield trickery traited. This means that I have the block buff from the shield gambit builder active most of the time and the two effects add up to what I find a noticeable increase in partial block.
Thanks to your overwhelming positive feedback, I've took a shot und created as promised a Lorebook page.
It took me quite some time to get a hang of this wiki-editor.
This thing screwed me over twice by timeouting and redirecting me back to the editor page instead of saving the results, but thats water under the bridge now.
In near future I might write some sentences and thoughts out in full, but at this point my mainload of work is finished and you are free to edit around, if you deem it to be necessary.
And here it is:
edit: I've tried to update the first three sheets in order to correct the spelling mistakes I made, but the new ones all look the same... I will look at this problem later.
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Originally Posted by geoboy
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