Notes On the Latest PTR Changes

Just a quickie today. MMO-Champion is reporting that the new Mastery effect (+20% damage as Holy Damage for TC, CS and Auto-Attack, +2.5% per point) has been nerfed a little to +16%/+2.1%. Arghhhhh.... right?

Right?

Well, don't be too alarmed. Previous PTR builds weren't properly increasing the damage of our Mastery with Inquisition (+30% Holy Damage, lest we forget) and from the sounds of things Hand of Light was being balanced around the output seen on the PTR. Lylirra was kind enough to pop onto the PTR forums and clarify if this was intended:

RLimbaugh said:
Is the new Mastery we have suppose to be affected by inquisition or not? Been wondering that since it was announced.

It is. There was a bug that was preventing this from occurring, though, but it should be resolved in the next PTR build. :)

(Source)

Rush is good for something. Who knew?

Another point of concern raised on the PTR testing sites (most recently by Antigen) was that Hammer of Wrath was hitting like a wet noodle (his words). Well, the CM was also nice enough to clarify this too in the same thread:

Samual Said:

Hammer of Wrath damage has been nerfed by 50% on the 4.0.6 PTR. [Is this intended?]

This is actually a bug. A very non-excessive, non-stealthy bug. There was small coding change in the latest PTR build that caused Hammer of Wrath, a ranged ability, to use ranged attack power instead of melee attack power. The change itself was completely unintended and has since been corrected.

That said, we're still watching paladin damage (both sustained and burst), and if we feel that further adjustments need to be made, Hammer of Wrath may actually be a good candidate.
(Source)

Yay for Blues communicating :). I'm not convinced that nerfing Hammer of Wrath is that good a candidate for addressing higher than desired Retribution DPS (It's only up for a relatively short period of time, Tier 12-13 levels of Haste may significantly impact rotation with higher TV damage and better scaling for Exorcism), but a heads-up is always welcome to me.

The upshot is that Mastery Rating should be appreciably better than Crit and Haste, even though the effect of Haste on DPS is rather erratic and hence difficult to assess.