アンスウェラー

One more day left to headstart!

Didn’t really play my rogue much this time around, only managed to get her from 35 to 36.

Managed to hit 42 on my cleric during the first couple of hours on the 2nd day of beta. I was probably one of the first to hit 42 on Wolfsbane, Guardian side since I hit a string of shard first in the later quest hubs of Droughtland.

Did Runic Descent countless times. Was pretty easy as a whole. Last boss of the instances is bugged though, and was doing significantly lower damage than he should be doing.

The last 2 bosses of Lantern Hook were pretty challenging at 42. Managed to complete it 3 times, but the runs can’t exactly be called smooth. It is a level 44 instances though, so the runs will definitely be smoother in release with a higher level group.

Here are the builds I used during the beta:

Melee DPS, 42 Druid/14 Shaman/0 Warden
Healing, 38 Warden/18 Sentinel/0 Druid
Ranged DPS, 32 Inquisitor/12 Sentinel/12 Justicar
Tanking, 34 Justicar/14 Purifier/8 Shaman

The only role that didn’t had a significant change was my Melee DPS one. The other 3 had quite a bunch of changes for one reason or another.

Melee DPS

Satyr’s DPS had went up a good point since Beta 6, and continue to contribute a huge part to my overall DPS. Improvement to Fae Hammer/Ageless Ice pretty much removed all mana issues I had previously. Ageless Ice though is still removing Vengeance of the Winter Storm on use. Hopefully this get fixed before head start.

All in all, I was able to chain mobs much quicker than in Beta 5 since mana is no longer a concern. DPS-wise, Druid with Satyr’s sustained DPS is still higher than Shaman’s, and I’m matching most rogue/warrior DPS in groups. Burst damage though still favor Shaman.

Healing

Initially I didn’t bother to take Protect the Frock for my healing role, but I went to respec for it after my first run in Lantern Hock. Reason? For once, there are a good bit of AE damage, and having Protect the Frock helps out in those situation when there isn’t a bard in the party.

There wasn’t much of a difference in raw healing between 38 and 42 in Warden, even if I factor in Ocean’s Blessing. Only 14.4% of spellpower loss on my HOTs, which translate to ~2.6 HPS.

Ranged DPS

The build was born out of pure weirdness and it somehow… works. Lurking Decay was bugged during this beta and hence I respec completely out of Cabalist.

Single target rotation:

Spiritual Deficiency -> Impede + Luminous Gaze -> Bold of Depravity -> Vex -> Bolt of Depravity -> Sanction Heretic -> Bolt of Depravity -> Banish/Aggressive Renewal

Vex + melee down a single target with purpose if mana is needed. Didn’t really use Aggressive Renewal much except in groups.

AE rotation:

Vex all targets -> Fanaticism + Soul Drain -> Circle of Oblivion -> Soul Drain

Typically Vex + Mien of Honor + Salvation returns enough HP to last through the AE casts.

Works… somewhat decently and could serve as a peudo off-healer in groups/PVP too since I have access to 2 group heals (Doctrine of Loyalty and Healing Communion), along with some passive HP returns via Salvation.

Single target DPS isn’t really that high though compared to a proper Inquisitor build due to lack of Castigation/Life and Death Concord.

Tanking

My tanking spec has the most amount of change in part due to the changes to Justicar.

Now that spellpower affects both parry and block, I generally value wisdom over endurance and hence I swap out Druid for Purifier.

The shields from Purifier are also useful in fights with heavy magical damage, e.g. Lantern Hook, and Caregiver’s Blessing + Healing Blessing serves as semi-decent emergency cooldown too.

The new Doctrine of Valiance is nearly useless. It heals less than a Doctrine of Bliss, and does less damage than Strike of Justice unless I expend 3 or more Conviction on it.

Even Justice was bugged this beta. It was hitting only two targets no matter how many points I put into Vengeful Justice.

Even so, AE aggro for a Justicar was vastly improved. Righteous Imperative + Glacial Shield + the various damage shield items from Rifts were enough to hold aggro reliable for most AE situations.

Single target aggro has also increased tremendously due to increased DPS and improved aggro generation.

HP total has went up a bit. Generally, Justicar still has a few hundred HP less than a warrior tank, but our armor is higher. Dodge + parry is higher on Justicar tanks while Warrior tanks have higher block rating and block mitigation.

Two issues with Justicar tanks still remain.

1) Hard to keep track of Conviction stack (Resolved if Alpha notes is true)
2) Lack of mobility.

The mobility issue once again surface itself in Lantern Hook. Last time I faced this was in Darkening Deeps on Michael. The fight against Rorf and the Pyromancer involves a fair bit of movement and some kind of rapid movement ability will be useful.

It isn’t game breaking. Just an annoyance.

As for shield vs 2-handed. My stance as always is the shields are better. There are a lot of maths floating around supporting 2-handers, but they don’t take into consideration various things I consider essential.

Good example is Venomous Faesource. It’s completely missing from most discussion about shield vs 2handed. Back in Beta 6, the Faesorce has a chance to trigger a 840 point heal when you block. In Beta 7 though, the heal was reduced to 375.

Next is mana utilization rate. Mana regeneration rate with conviction and a decent enough block rate is pretty high, which allows you to expend it more on Doctrines when required.

MP regeneration with purpose alone is able to sustain even justice/strike of justice/censure endlessly, but it isn’t enough if you are going to spam Doctrine of Loyalty every other GCD, which is something I do in certain fights, e.g. against the Emberlord in Lantern Hook.

Sure, I can spec up deeper into Shaman for Ageless Ice and/or Druid for Fae Hammer, but I don’t really attack much physically in those heavy AE situation.

If I have a shield on though, I’m still getting some mana back passively when the boss hit me.

There’s also a lack of proper comparison.

I was lucky enough to have a level 38 blue 1-handed, level 38 blue shield and a level 38 blue 2-handed.

My parry rate with the 2-handed is 20.06%, while parry rate with 1-handed + shield is 18.38%.

The number being thrown around shows a 4% parry difference between 1-handed + shield vs 2-handed, whereas in my own case, the difference I see is only 1.6%, so I’m wondering if the weapons compared are of the same item level, if they had enchant their gear up for wis/spellpower, their base spellpower etc…

All in all, blocking works for me and I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t continue to use a shield.