Explain Val'anyr please

#0 - April 13, 2009, 1:04 a.m.

Essentially, I believe information regarding the mace should be provided before Ulduar opens.

I'm seeing so much arguing about which healer deserves the new legendary mace the most, and the arguments all hinge on which healer benefits the most off of the proc. But we don't definitively know exactly how the proc works.

This is a huge issue because the first guilds to be completing hard mode Ulduar will need to figure out which healer will receive the mace, weeks before any information is known, and before they even know whether that healer can make the best use of it. Yes, I realize rewarding the mace based on the class is stupid. But my guild does not have just one "most loyal" or "most skilled" healer. My GM has told a few healers in the guild to work out amongst ourselves who to get the legendary, but we are stumped. And so I turn here for information.

http://ptr.wowhead.com/?spell=64415

Thats the datamined Val'anyr buff at wowhead.

Things i'd like a blue response on:
Does the shield stack additively, ie. can a 1k shield be added to a 2k shield to make a 3k, or, does a stronger shield simply overwrite a weaker shield?
Does it interfere in any way with discipline shields or divine aegis?
Does it benefit from druid hots, or only through direct heals?
Does it work with every recipient of chain heal, wild growth, or circle of healing, or just the main target of those spells?
Does the mace have haste, crit, spirit, mp5? Or all of them because its legendary and therefor amazing?
Are the devs still messing around with this, and if so, are there any plans to let the community know when you iron out the details?

And before any of you say my guild does not have to worry about this, it will take weeks after Ulduar opens before a single mace is completed. 30 required shards, 30% droprate by many reports on the PTR, 1 per hardmode. It is conceivable that a few shards will drop for my guild before the first Val'anyr is constructed on any server.

edited for clarity

Ghostcrawler

#22 - April 14, 2009, 12:07 a.m.

I can understand the desire to formulate a perfect loot plan before you step foot into Ulduar, but this game has so few mysteries left anymore that we'd like for this to remain one of them, at least for a little while. :)

It's our intent that it is useful to all four healing classes. That's about all I'm going to say.

Ghostcrawler

#93 - April 25, 2009, 1:40 a.m.

Q u o t e:
The only thing that made Thunderfury and Warglaives significantly better than other options were the procs. The stats weren't overwhelmingly better compared to epics, except for the proc.

Absolutely.

Q u o t e:
I don't see why it would be surprising if the same is true of the mace. The proc is 15 seconds of 15% more healing that can't overheal (For almost any difficult encounter, you can virtually be assured the shield will be consumed before it wears off). That is quite a bit.

The proc is probably better than you guys are assuming (even for druids). I'm not going to spoil it though. :)

Ghostcrawler

#207 - May 1, 2009, 7:10 p.m.

Since everyone has now seen the tooltip but not the proc in action, we can understand how the potential for guild drama exists in deciding who gets the righteous hammer.

We'll go ahead and explain exactly how it works. Just give us a couple of days to get some text together.

Ghostcrawler

#231 - May 4, 2009, 6:43 p.m.

As Samgee points out above, Bornakk posted the explanation in the Dungeon and Raid forum.

I think some of the confusion arose because there are two procs. The healer procs the Blessing on themselves, which then causes their heals to proc bubbles on their targets. The weapon is generally useful for all healers because everyone can maximize the amount absorbed while the proc is up in their own way.

Ghostcrawler

#236 - May 4, 2009, 7:22 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Does the *blessing* not proc on full overheals, the *shield*, or both?

Full overheals cannot proc the blessing (on the healer). They can create or add to the bubble (on the dude healed).

In essence, we didn't want you to feel like you had to stand around healing someone before a pull until the blessing proc'd. But once the blessing proc'd, we didn't want you to have to shout at the other healers to stop healing or something. That would be annoying.

Ghostcrawler

#304 - May 5, 2009, 10:33 p.m.

If it helps to explain it, the blessing is triggered by healing being done. If you cast a heal on a fully-healed target, you are doing no healing. The bubble itself is triggered by a heal spell being cast. The proc then looks for how much your spell would heal and makes a bubble of 15% of that number. The amount actually healed by the spell isn't a factor for purposes of the bubble. That is why we tried to explain that hots that tick but don't heal cannot cause the blessing on you (the healer) but can contribute to the bubble on the target.

If the bubble goes down (because it took enough damage or 8 sec have elapsed), then you next heal will cause another bubble for as long as the blessing lasts (which is 15 sec).

Ghostcrawler

#335 - May 6, 2009, 5:24 p.m.

Q u o t e:
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Q u o t e:

GC, one of two things MUST be true...

1) HoTs that tick but don't heal don't actually tick, nullifying one of your scenarios, or
2) Non-healing HoTs *do* tick, but are erroneously absent from the combat log.

Can you clarify which it is please, as this situation means it matters.
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(1) is what has been said is the case. Druid overhealing doesn't actually happen, which will hurt us pretty badly with this proc.

Your points 1 and 2 are not inconsistent. It is just the way hots work technically. They can tick without healing. That is irrelevant for purposes of the bubble, which only looks at the numbers on the spell when it is cast, not the effective healing it does. Some procs can be caused by non-healing hot ticks and others cannot. It just depends on how the specific spell or item is set up.

On the issue of the proc being RNG, yes you are correct. RNG is part of the game. You sometimes get a big crit on a heal when you most need it and sometimes you waste those crits. We are not terribly sympathetic to the argument that healing has to be 100% predictable and dependable to be useful. We understand some players would prefer a game with even less emphasis on random elements, but we think random chance (within reason) adds excitement and interest to WoW.

Non-heals, such as Power Word: Shield, don't contribute to either proc. That is just the way the item is set up. If you are a Disc priest who ends up with Val'anyr, I would suggest trying to maximize your actual heals when the bubble is up. We are going to make the heal provided by the glyph of PW:S able to cause the procs, though typically items that heal will not cause the procs.

As a few players have pointed out, Thunderfury looked like a pretty mild tanking weapon if you didn't see the proc in action. Like that weapon, you should want Val'anyr for the proc, not the stats. We aren't at all worried that healers capable of acquiring this legendary are going to find it lackluster.