The newest content patch for World of Warcraft is coming in 11 days, and I am looking forward to it a great deal. Partly this is because we desperately need new stuff, but part is that Blizzard is adding a broken new legendary item in for my class and spec, and they don't seem to realize how absurd it is. The community at large hasn't seemed to grasp it either, as most people seem to think it is decent but no big deal.
They are so wrong. This new item is called Divine Resonance (DR) and it is going to break things for paladins of the Kyrian covenant.
Here are the basics. A normal legendary item should be adding roughly 5% to your overall output. On single target that amounts to something like 300 damage per second. Healing per second is much more complicated, but it is reasonable to think of them as having similar value. My current legendaries add about 300 dps on single target, and as much as 500 dps on fights with many targets.
DR interacts with a 1 minute cooldown that I already have. After that 1 min cooldown is used, it casts a spell every 5 seconds for 30 seconds, so I get 6 casts. That spell does damage, generates holy power, and has an additional effect. First I will do the calculations for my damage spec, Retribution.
First, single target. For Retribution the spell that is cast is Judgement. That does 3325 damage directly. It also makes the target take 25% more damage from my big finisher. Sometimes that will overlap with other things, so it is probably only worth about 20% on my finisher, which is 1347 damage. It also provides 1 holy power to cast more finishers, which is worth about 20% of a finisher, which is another 1347 damage. That means on average each one of those hits is worth 6020 damage. I get 6 of those hits each minute for a total of 602 damage per second.
So on single target this legendary is worth double what other legendaries are. That is nuts. However, is it any good on multi target fights? I will assume 5 targets for now. The initial hit is still 3325, but the finisher bonus is significantly worse at 930. The holy power is better though, clocking in at 4140 damage. Thus DR is worth 840 dps on five targets. It isn't as much better on multi target, but it is still absolutely my best option by a huge margin.
Retribution
1 target 5 target
Current 300 500
DR 602 840
Now to examine how this legendary works for tanking when I am Protection spec. This mechanic is quite a bit more challenging to model because Holy Power has multiple uses while tanking. I will go with my worst case estimates though, to be cautious. The spell that is cast by DR when I am Protection is Avenger's Shield (see Captain America) which hits up to 5 targets so as we add more targets the ability gains dramatically in efficacy. Also I heal for every damage dealt by it, so I get both offence and defence.
First, single target. Avenger's Shield does 1744 damage. It heals me for 1744. Also it gives me a holy power, which is worth 237 damage and 2576 healing. As such, it gives me a combined total of 630 dps, counting healing as dps. This doesn't even describe its full power though, as this also grants me significant defensive benefits that are extremely hard to quantify. I won't have to quantify them though, as DR is so busted that side benefits aren't even needed.
On five targets things get out of control. The base healing and damage increase by five times, as does the holy power damage. The holy power healing is unchanged. The total here is 2120 dps. This is off the charts. To put it in perspective, I have another legendary that I use most of the time that is purely relevant in AOE. It does 2370 dps on five targets and is nigh worthless on single target, plus all of its benefit is in damage with no defensive ability at all. Realistically I only use that because I have no other good options. If I was using a good all around choice I would be getting roughly 300 dps overall, similar to what I would get for my other spec.
Protection
1 target 5 target
Current 250 350
DR 630 2120
That 2120 number is a huge, monstrous outlier. Now it should be noted that 5 targets is the optimal number for DR. If I chose any larger number of targets it wouldn't get much better, and if I chose less targets it falls off mostly linearly. Still, at any number of targets this is a ludicrous ability. My total output is roughly 6000 dps (again, counting healing and damage both), so 2120 is inappropriate. It is quite reasonable to model this as averaging 1000 dps over a whole dungeon, making it vastly more powerful than any legendary for any class.
What is funny is that these calculations above haven't even captured the whole problem. There is a new power for the Mikanikos soulbind that reduces the cooldown of the ability that does this, by as much as 33% on 5 targets. I will almost for sure be using that, which raises the 5 target effectiveness over 3000 dps, making it a 50% increase in throughput.
So here is the question: Should it be nerfed? There are two approaches to answering this. First, yes, it is silly overpowered, and should be brought into line. Second, Retribution and Protection paladins aren't used in *any* high end optimal raids or dungeon groups. None. They are trash tier. Clearly this will help, but I don't think it will actually result in them being overpowered overall. I suspect it will raise them from trash tier to respectable.
If you are a game designer and you make a huge mistake like this but the people who benefit from your mistake are still totally in line with other groups, should you fix it? Ideally of course you nerf this legendary but buff the specs that aren't working well, but Blizzard seems set on leaving my two specs as weak, so they aren't going that route.
I don't get to decide that they should buff me and nerf this absurd legendary. They should, but Blizzard isn't likely to listen to my plan. As such, I will use the thing and be totally busted and hope that they conclude that overall I am still fair, so it should sit as is.
Interesting analysis. Thanks for writing it up.
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