Crusade for Divine Plea

#0 - Oct. 2, 2010, 3:16 a.m.

Intent: With the announcement of a release date for Cataclysm, and watching the changes to rogues I've come to the conclusion: The only way Divine Plea is getting fixed is if someone crunches the numbers on that ability, comes up with a solution to fix the problem, and makes it public enough that it can't be ignored. I like playing a Holy Paladin enough that I'm going to do it.

Math: Defining variables:
H = HPS without Divine Plea usage.
h = Change HPS with Divine Plea usage.
M = Mana Endurance without DP usage.
m = Change in Mana Endurance with DP usage.
p = Healing penalty on Divine Plea. Currently p = .5
d = Duration of Divine Plea. Currently d = 15
r = % Mana regen per second. Currently r = .01
t = Time between uses of Divine Plea.
P = Mana Pool.
R = Mana regen per second while casting. (MP5 divided by 5)
O = Mana used per second while casting.

The following should be understandable:
M = P / (O-R)
h = p*d*H / t
m = P / (O-R-(r*d*P / t)) - M = r*d*(P^2)/ [ (O-R) * ( (O-R)*t - r*d*P) ) ]

Thus the change in Total Healing Done by Divine Plea useage is:
(H - h)*(M + m) - HM = mH - h(M+m)
Algebra and substitution turns this into:

H*d*P * [ (r / (O-R)) - p] / ( (O-R)*t - r*d*P)

Calculus tells us that this value decreases as t increases. In otherwords: The healing benefit decreases longer you wait to hit Divine Plea. Current Beta Information puts R = 367 and P = 70000. Assuming a HS>HL>HL>WoG rotation approximetly has O = 760. Therefore we get:

H*10500 * [ -19649/ 393] / ( 393*t - 10500)

t = 120 has the denominator positive. Therefore the whole value is NEGATIVE. (In fact we lose about 14 seconds of healing by doing so).

Analysis: We cannot use Divine Plea while healing. If it is expected to be up for the full 15 seconds, then for those 15 seconds we need to Focus on NOT healing. I shouldn't have to say why that's bad/wrong. If it's NOT supposed to be up for the full 15 seconds, then it is a Not-Intuitive ability and should really be re-examined. I'll tell you for free that shortening the duration won't change whether or not we hit it on cooldown.

There are a number of other comments I can make on this. I'll probably make more as necessary.

Ghostcrawler

#56 - Oct. 3, 2010, 7:39 p.m.

Your calculations seem to assume that damage comes in at a steady rate and so you can just solve for when to use Divine Plea. But damage usually doesn't work like that. You should use Divine Plea at the right time, which doesn't always mean as soon as you start to get low.

Ghostcrawler

#57 - Oct. 3, 2010, 7:43 p.m.

As a follow up, I don't think this has much to do with Exorcism. If you feel safe throwing out some damage, do so. There will probably be plenty of times where you don't feel like you can afford the damage, GCDs or your own mental bandwidth.

You can't just compare abilities between different classes in a vacuum. I think the salient points are: 1) Do paladins run out of mana worse than other healers? That discussion needs to assume the entire package, not just time until Divine Plea. 2) Are paladins much harder to play than other healers, such that timing Divine Plea becomes a large burden?