So just read the xpac notes and looks like they added a group ward to mana cure for the damage type it's proc'd to cure....well considering I didnt see this for most of beta or notice it...though I'm assuming it was a last minute change...interestingly this idea was suggested I believe from the last round of mega feedbacks but has also kicked around for some time before that.... Stating up front that I have yet to test this...my concern is the same concern all templars have had with mana cure for geez whats it been near a decade...its proc chance has always been weak at best....on top of that its base mechanic is to cure the det type from the group of the person who procs it...so wizzie for elemental, necro for disease, etc. In KoS it was ok...not great but has been somewhat of a legacy ability taken simply because it's there. If they tinkered with its base mechanics to nudge it to proc more might be very useful and give templars a little bit more flexibility but the concern is that dots now can chunk a hugh amount of hp if not cured..so we are back at the base problem of mana cure...healers generally dont like to leave a dot on group members for long after they hit...in hopes mana cure MAY proc. I will add that there was only one fight in recent memory in which mana cure was procing very very reliably...one of the names dont remember in maldura x2 one where the healers could not cure the arcane dets...works nice there.
Considering that most of my time when running my templar was healing an SK tank...well I honestly was most often beat to the cures, even though I consider myself pretty adept at grabbing them quickly. So if I was beat to my manual cures, there's pretty much no shot that a proc cure was ever firing off. Point is, I do not feel this will make much of a difference. I appreciate the idea that we are given another ward. But I pretty much detest proc skills of this variety as it is. 'Wait for it... wait foor ittttt...' For example, while our right side prestige skill does some amazing things, it's just boring to say 'ok here's vital intercession, now let's watch it disappear, now something cool might happen, zzzzzz' Anyway, Is one of the reasons I'm putting my templar on backup status for my play time. I don't find it as fun to play as some of my other characters, and the progression of gear and skills can be felt so much more clearly on other classes. It's currently a difference of every skill feeling more powerful and interesting vs. repent feeling slightly more powerful and interesting as I increase my own power (given the fact that all heals already healed people to full health even back when I had 2k potency). It's just less fun to main.
I have level 100's of all kinds and pretty much every healer type. But, my templar is my toon. If this is ends up being another expansion where my healing class is combination spectator/janitor, I'm not gonna play another toon. I'm gonna go do something else.
You know, a lot of the doom and gloom about non-shaman healers that I and others have helped to spread is a bit over the top. Templar is still a beast healer if you trust your tank and have good communication skills with your team. But the reason templar can still perform really well if the group is working perfectly together is largely because of ONE skill. I don't want to continue the abuse that non-shaman have felt. If there are templars out there who are looking for groups or a guild, I will gladly take one with me. Templar is a strong healing class. People just have to be aware that there may be more random deaths than if a group ward healer was present. But, I completely agree that the overall mindset of the community along with the mechanics of the game have turned templar into backup support heals in many situations. And if i'm going to be just another person in the group who does his job well, rather than someone looked upon and trusted to keep everyone alive without sideways feelings of (hm, wonder if this would be going better with a defiler) well, I'd rather do that as a character where more skills feel progression of gear. At least my necromancer can look to self-improvement if he's lacking in damage. I know that I can go after X to improve. It's just more fun and rewarding. Where can a templar look when people die from 8mil autoattacks from trash? Oh that's right. He's looking for help from another healer with group wards that he will now make stronger... My necromancer bio reads something like 'I was previously a templar, and perhaps the continued resurrections of my fellow players awoke something inside to pursue something a bit more sinister.'
Well tbh the 2 aditional buffs to templars, which tbh must have been last minute add ons as I never saw them in all the beta notes or when I was on beta....are the ward attached to mana cure and more damage reduction to true faith....alot of unknows right now on the proc ward however dps boost from True Faith/Reflect combo is a plus but...again depends how much more DR above what we had. Again as I said the ward on mana cure looks good on paper except most templars know mana cure's usefulness before this was 99.999% unreliable so lets see...still do not know if they played around with its base mechanics which tbh is all we ever wanted.
Running around me and a merc was able to get the ward to proc regardless if the cure went off or not...being hit with nox dots but able to proc the ward....fairly decent at 2.6 to 3+ million...so as group wards go for a non shamans ok not great but could be worse....duration is bit low think 6 or 7 secs
Interestingly, in raid last night, the only time i actually was able to proc the ward WAS against nox. Had ticking damage that was elemental and I used both a conjy and a wizard and didn't ever get it to proc. Toward the end of the fight, the ticking damage became nox, changed target to a necro and was able to see procs.
Personally, I'm completely unimpressed by it. The proc mechanics aren't really something we can gauge until people have settled on their ascension classes which change their damage types... might make it easier to find the type you want if your friends pick varied classes, but really unintuitive to find said class. The proc chance is okayish if the ward lasted longer than a blink. The duration is abysmal. By the time the tooltip appears, I only see 3.4 seconds left, so I assume the duration is 3.5-4.0 seconds. Like Shield of Faith, each person has a different ward... so 1.5-5.0 million per person from what I saw depending on type of crit(solo tests). As I said, the duration is the worst thing. If you have any other wards going when Mana Ward procs, it will certainly fade before it does much warding due to the general FIFO nature of wards. Granted, the 50% bleedthrough on wards now means that no collection of wards will absorb everything... but having Mana Ward early in the list is improbable. You also have to be lucky enough that the ward overlaps with some sort of specific-type magical damage. I have been unable to get Mana Ward to appear on any parses. It is completely overshadowed by the myriad of normal wards that last up to 30 seconds. I thought Divinity's Aid was too short at 6 seconds. This is pushing towards ridiculous. If permanent DoTs tick at 5-6s, I'd at least like a 100% guarantee that a Mana Ward being proc'ed will actually be up for the next damage tick.
An exciting turn of events. Last raid, (3 hours), manaward was able to heal something, two times!! And it warded damage averaging ALMOST 400k. This is a huge boon and should make survivability during that 8 seconds each raid a sure thing!!
Yeah methinks they just added it in at the final hour on beta to just hey we gave ya this wonderful ward proc.....which doesnt actually proc. Nothing for nothing I know this xpac should really be called KA: the gatekeeping xpac but giving us an ability which is useless come on now....
I guess I don't really understand WHY this would be put in when it has zero effect on the game. Why bother taking the time to implement something that is less relevant to the internal workings of the game than the EULA. Heck, at least changing the font on the EULA would make it easier to read (assuming, of course, the font didn't get smaller).
I will say I did PM a few devs regarding this issue more than a week ago and nothing....usually I'll get something back even if its the standard we are aware of an issue and are looking into it or thanks for heads up....nothing.....just saying.
Sorry if this has already been repeated. I saw this post ages ago and now its grown quite long, I have not read all of it. I did some testing last night, I can confirm.. First, the ward part proc's on your group and does not require anyone to have a detriment that needs to be cured. I cast the buff on myself and just nuked a test dummy for a bit. I got it to proc quite often (at least twice / min). I also got a friend to test it out on his toon and we had the same results. That's the good news out the way... As for the ward, it seems like a complete joke. With 4k crit bonus, 300k ability mod , 14k potency and 30 fervor it seemed to proc 130k group ward every time. So, if you do the math then on AE damage that works out as a 25k hp ward for each person in your group; Given that people have at least 4 million hp... at best...every 30 seconds you are able to absorb damage the equiv of 0.5% of their hp with your 25k ward. Note: I am not sure how people above were getting it to proc for 3m? maybe the ward amount is based on the damage you do?. I was just clicking the buff and looking at the value when it I got it to proc. Maybe what shown when you examine the buff is not the ward amount and it crits after? who knows?... I will do some more tests when the servers go back up... So far though it seems completely useless.
