UPDATE - Sovereign Changes - Healers 1.3.6

23/7/10 - Updated with changes to DPS set from PTS.
18/7/10 - Updated with a changes to DPS set.

We've been discussing your feedback and thoughts internally, and we now have a few adjustments ready to show you.  Just as with all things which are still in development, please remember that these are still subject to change!

Magic Healer (Rune Priest, Shaman, Archmage, Zealot)

(Primary) Healing Set

Wil - 232
Tou - 134
Wou - 116
Ini - 106
Spi - 294
Cor - 289
Ele - 289
6% heal crit chance
40 heal power
4 AP/s
4% reduced chance to be crit
2% reduced armor penetration

3 piece - 85 Wil
4 piece - 85 Wou
5 piece - 5% Heal Crit
6 piece - On Heal: 10% chance to increase heal power by 130 for 10s.
7 piece - On Heal: 10% chance to gain 60 Action Points over 3 seconds.
8 piece - 2m cooldown - For the next 10 seconds, your group can not be critically hit.

(Secondary) Offensive Set

Int - 232
Tou - 134
Wou - 116
Ini - 106
Spi - 294
Cor - 289
Ele - 289
6% magic crit chance
40 magic power
4 AP/s
4% disrupt strikethrough
2% reduced armor penetration

3 piece - 85 Int
4 piece - 85 Wou
5 piece - 5% Magic Crit
6 piece - On Hit: 10% chance to increase magic power by 130 for 10s.
7 piece - On Hit: 10% chance to increase target's chance to be critically hit by 7% 10% for 10s. (Updated PTS 23-7-10)

8 piece - 2m cooldown - Your group's abilities cost no Action Points for 10 seconds.

NateL.

They've brought back the AP regen albeit in a slightly revised form which should keep most people happy and they are obviously keen to put some kind of crit reduction on our sets. I think I prefer the new 8 piece ability over the previous version as we can fire and forget about it. Be interesting to see if it's on or off the GCD.

As for the offensive stats, reduction in build up times offensivly isn't all that great for a Runepriest. The Grimnir's line is all instacast except Rune of Battle (which has a 2m cooldown). Not sure how it would work with Rune of Burning. So that just leaves Rune of Fortune and Striking... Maybe if they worked it into a group reduction of build up times similar to the tanks' abilities and our healing set?

Group action points reduced will be a nice little bonus, especially if you co-ordinate it with DPS casters using focussed mind!

Sovereign Changes - Healers 1.3.6

18/7/10 - Updated with current changes.

Stick up a big post, and another important piece of news will follow soon after, it's always the way!

Without further ado, the proposed set, annotated with the changes from current and tyrant (without glyphs).

(Primary) Healing Set

Wil - 232             (+25, +96)

Tou - 134            (+56, +74)

Wou - 116          (+20, +61)

Ini - 106              (+98, +96)

Spi - 294             (0, +235)

Cor - 289            (0, +68)

Ele - 289             (0, +242)

6% heal crit chance      (+2, +3)

40 heal power                (+17, +40)

4 AP/s                            (+1, +4)

4% reduced chance to be crit    (0, +1)

2% reduced armor penetration  (0, +2)

Hit points/4s - 0                (0, -12)
Magic Power - 0               (0, -27)
Morale per Sec - 0            (-3, 0)
Reduced change to be disrupted 0 (-2, 0)
Int - 0                                           (-157, -80)

3 piece - 85 Wil             (0, +9)

4 piece - 85 Wou           (+85, +9)

5 piece - 5% Heal Crit   (0, 0)

6 piece - On Heal: 10% chance to increase heal power by 130 for 10s.

7 piece - On Heal: 10% chance to gain 60 Action Points over 3 seconds.

8 piece - 2m cooldown - For the next 10 seconds, your group can not be critically hit.

Source.
Image courtsey of Gaarawaar Gabs.

Compared to old Sovereign we lose 29 Toughness overall, 3 morale per second but gain in most stats, especially initiative and wounds. Lose Martyr (10% chance on hit to heal group for 192/9s  affected by willpower so heals for more),  Vivacious (10% on heal to regain 50AP), and Empowered Runes (+25% Heal Crit for 10s, 2min cooldown).

Lowering Int will mean that Stagger/Silence etc will be even harder to stick on enemies. 

The big hit for some will be the loss of Vivacious, some Sovereign Runepriests reported that they were able to play without slotting in Restorative Burst freeing up a tactic slot. With Restorative Burst it allows for some great sustained casting. There are already some, on the forums, calling for Vivacious to be returned to the 7 piece bonus slot .

The other set bonuses seem like nice passive abilities, +130 heal power for 10s, and -10% chance for target to be crit for 10s should all help out.

The change from Empowered Runes, +25% Heal Crit ability to +75% Crit Heal Amount is hard to compare. We lose the additional Blessing of Grungni and Restorative Bursts from the proc. However I think the increased crit heal amount, on average, increase our healing more than +Heal Crit. Unfortunatly with only a 10s duration (or 8.5s if it's on GCD) you might be unlucky and not crit at all during that period. I will try and do some numerical analysis and post it up later. Also I hope it doesn't cause a global cooldown, 10s abilities seem so short when you have to wait to cast that first spell.

Group uncrittable for 10s is a very nice little ability, and also good to save yourself from Witch Elves and Sorcs! Whilst the 60AP over 3s isn't as good as an instant 50AP regen, most Runepriests shouldn't have many AP issues at all wearing this set.

Compared to Tyrant, large stat increases, but lose additional 50 AP pool and Heirophants Grace. There are however hints that Hierophants Grace might be nerfed, "I mentioned in the Tank Archetype thread that we're looking at the "Undefendable" effects for 1.3.6 - likewise, we're looking at Heirophant's Grace as well." NateL

 And for those that are interested, the DPS spec!

(Secondary) Offensive Set

Int - 232

Tou - 134

Wou - 116

Ini - 106

Spi - 294

Cor - 289

Ele - 289

6% magic crit chance

40 magic power

4 AP/s

4% disrupt strikethrough

2% reduced armor penetration

3 piece - 85 Int

4 piece - 85 Wou

5 piece - 5% Magic Crit

6 piece - On Hit: 10% chance to increase magic power by 130 for 10s.

7 piece - On Hit: 10% chance to increase target's chance to be critically hit by 10% for 10s.

8 piece - 2m cooldown - Your group's abilities cost no Action Points for 10 seconds.

More detail on 1.3.6 DPS changes for the Runepriest

Runepriests & Zealots:
One of our long-time concerns regarding the Runepriest and Zealot careers is that they ultimately become more limited than other Healer-archetype careers. This is because the other healing careers have their Mastery paths sorted by role - people who play those careers make a decision about the role they want to play, then specialize in the corresponding Mastery path and gear up appropriately. Runepriests and Zealot, however, have their Mastery paths sorted by delivery vehicle ("direct", "over time", and "area", essentially) and then have both offensive and defensive abilities together in each Mastery.  Since there's obviously no such thing as "gearing for direct", though, Runepriests and Zealots then have to decide again whether they want to be offensive or defensive and then gear appropriately - the net result being that even within their chosen Mastery, half of their abilities are ineffective.

We want to maintain the general setup of the Runepriest and Zealot Mastery paths, but we also want to address this issue.  In order to do both of these, we will be adding a new ability to the Runepriest, and changing the functionality of Harbinger of Doom for the Zealot.  All Runepriests will now start with an ability named Rune of Breaking, which can be toggled on and off:

• While toggled off, the Runepriest is affected by the Rune of Balance.  This causes all Intelligence, Magic Power, and Magic Crit stats on items to be negated, and instead converted into Willpower, Healing Power, and Healing Crit bonuses.  We're currently planning on these stats converting at a 2:1 ratio - in other words, a total of +100 Intelligence from gear would instead be turned into +50 Willpower while this ability is toggled off.

• While toggled on, the Runepriest is affected by the Rune of Breaking.  This works the same way but in the opposite direction:  Willpower, Healing Power, and Healing Crit stats on gear are negated and instead converted into Intelligence, Magic Power, and Magic Crit, also at a 2:1 ratio.

• Rune of Breaking may be toggled on and then back off at any time; doing so is instant and costs no Action Points.  However, once it is toggled off, there is a 30 second cooldown before it may be toggled back on again.

For Zealots, Harbinger of Doom will be changed to provide this same functionality.  It will become a starting abilities, and can be toggled on or off.  While toggled off, the Zealot is the Harbinger of Change (and has the same offensive gear stats converted into the same healing stats), and while toggled on, the Zealot is the Harbinger of Doom (and likewise, has healing gear stats converted into offensive stats).  Additionally, all of the Zealot's tactics which currently affect Harbinger of Doom will be redesigned to be appropriate for this new system, and the Runepriest will also gain some tactics which affect Rune of Breaking as well. 

Nate Levy
Lead Designer
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

WarhammerOnline Forums.

"The new effect will probably just be called 'Rune of Anger' and give a character glow effect... Hope they at least remember to flip heal crit to magic crit as well!"

Not a huge suprise in functionality of the ability, you can see my original estimate wasn't too far off the mark.

One suprising development is the improvements to our healing that it will bring. Any int, magic crit, magic power will convert into the heal equivalent. We all have some base int, and most sets also add a certain amount of int so it should be a boost to our willpower. It should be a lot easier to hit the willpower cap with the changes and be able to spend points in more survivability, some old items may need to be re-evaluated in light of this change. Conqueror and Invader have magic crit and int set bonuses making them slightly more viable,

I'm not sure that the ratio will stay at 2:1, I think I would prefer magic/heal crit to be a 1:1 ratio as that doesn't develop naturally with our character. Intelligence could then be slightly lower preventing everyone from having capping willpower too easily.

I have a number of concerns with these changes though:

• In healing mode, we will be able to contribute little or no damage due to negating our base int, and vice-versa for DPS mode and healing. I don't think it should negate (all) willpower/int. For example one could convert willpower to intelligence in the ratio of 2:1. Then half effectiveness of willpower in Rune of Breaking mode.
• DOT/HOTs are calculated each tick, so if you DOT/HOT someone and then change stance the damage/healing will drop. This really reduces effectivenesss of stance dancing, something that could be a fun and advanced way to play the class.
• Can't change tactics in combat to meet your DPS/Healing needs.
• Still have broken/worthless tactics. 
• Could trigger the Global Cooldown.
• Still don't have a mechanism to reduce enemy resists to our damage.
• Balance issues if weapon DPS does affect our magic/heal power and comes in on the same patch. Could we really become flavour of the month?! 

One way to overcome 2-3 of these issues is to have tactics with 2 features - a balance and a breaking side. e.g. Blessing of Grungni - Under Rune of Breaking critical hits will reduce resistance to elemental damage by 150. Under Rune of Balance critical heals increase incoming healing by 25%. Another way would to be able to choose a tactic set to go with each Rune.

Interesting anyway and should give us more options. Time will tell...

Discipline versus Ancestor's Echo

Just thought I'd post some quick numerical analysis and thoughts on two talents: Discipline and Ancestor's Echo.

At 30% crit, 13 Grugni/11 Grimnir, Average Heals (including crit):

Ability	1050 Willpower	890 Willpower (-Discipline)	Diff	25% Ancestor's Echo
Rune of Regeneration	2812	2646	-166	+0
Grungni's Gift	707	652	-55	+162
Blessing of Valaya	7734	7071	-663	+972
Rune of Serenity	6333	6002	-331	+0

Benefits to Ancestor's Echo:
Doesn't overheal - more useful when casting Blessing of Valaya for non-damaged party members.
Ignores heal debuffs.
Worthwhile when you reach willpower cap without Discipline.

Disadvantages:
Actual value is less powerful than a raw heal because shields ignore resists and armour. 100 HP lasts a lot longer on a tank than a 100 point shield.
Doesn't affect Rune of Regeneration, Rune of Serenity, Rune of Shielding.
Unaffected by Blessing of Grungni.
Less reliable, but still a good proc rate.
Could spend 1 mastery point elsewhere.

I believe the disadvantages indicated in italics probably don't initially occur to people when thinking about the tactic. Do people think it is more viable than Discipline when you aren't willpower capped? Comments please!