[Patch 3.2] PTR Testing Vindication and Ardent Defender

When I did my post on the change to Vindication coming in Patch 3.2, I got a question in the comments asking if Hammer of the Righteous would proc Vindication on multiple mobs.

I checked around and it didn’t appear anyone had tested it. So I copied over to the Broxigar PVE PTR.

Now I’ve never had Vindication and Hammer of the Righteous in the same build. I took the portal to Ironforge and respeced. I went with a Crusade build, even though some recent developments seem to indicate that Tankadins will not be going that deep into Ret anymore.

Seal of Vengeance/Seals of the Pure
Seal of Vengeance has been changed. When you have a 5 stack up and hit the mob, your seal will do 33% of your weapon damage. On Live it does maybe 10 to 15 points of damage. This may make you want to consider your old Broken Promise again, but after some theorycrafting it still looks like Item Level and DPS will trump speed. Stick with our highest iLevel/DPS weapon.

In the latest build, Seals of the Pure has been buffed. Before it didn’t affect this new seal damage, now it does.

The math geniuses at MainTankadin are still working out the numbers, but early indications are that Seals of the Pure will out threat Crusade. Once we get a little closer to Patch 3.2’s release, I’ll have a post on how I’m going to be specing Honorshammer, but as this latest change demonstrates, there are still being changes made that will affect your build.

Vindication
For the actual Vindication testing, I flew out to Icecrown and pulled two different mobs.

The first time I pulled them with Avenger’s Shield and found that Avenger’s Shield will proc Vindication on each mob it hits.
The combat log shows there’s nearly a full second delay between the hit and the debuff being applied.

The next group I did via the old Paladin body pull and to no surprised, found that regular melee swings also proc Vindication. To no suprise, the debuff is a reduction of 574 AP just like Demo Shout/Demo Roar and Curse of Weakness.
Now with only melee swings, I discovered the application of Vindication is a ‘chance on hit’. It can and will fall off. I hate a key survivability debuff like this being subject to the RNG when it’s cousins Demo Shout/Roar and Curse of Weakness can not fall off until their duration expires.

Finally I tested with Hammer of the Righteous. Here’s the combat log of what happened.

7/24 01:04:22.843 SWING_DAMAGE,0xF5300079A4121D7E,"Hulking Abomination",0xa48,0x010000000005B7DF,"Honorhammer",0x511,175,0,1,0,0,12,nil,nil,nil
7/24 01:04:23.546 SWING_DAMAGE,0x010000000005B7DF,"Honorhammer",0x511,0xF1300079A90653AC,"Shadow Adept",0x10a48,438,0,1,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil
7/24 01:04:23.546 SPELL_AURA_APPLIED_DOSE,0x010000000005B7DF,"Honorhammer",0x511,0xF1300079A90653AC,"Shadow Adept",0x10a48,31803,"Holy Vengeance",0x2,DEBUFF,3
7/24 01:04:23.734 SPELL_CAST_SUCCESS,0x010000000005B7DF,"Honorhammer",0x511,0xF1300079A90653AC,"Shadow Adept",0x10a48,53595,"Hammer of the Righteous",0x2
7/24 01:04:23.734 SPELL_DAMAGE,0x010000000005B7DF,"Honorhammer",0x511,0xF1300079A90653AC,"Shadow Adept",0x10a48,53595,"Hammer of the Righteous",0x2,1641,0,2,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil
7/24 01:04:23.937 SPELL_DAMAGE,0x010000000005B7DF,"Honorhammer",0x511,0xF5300079A4121D7E,"Hulking Abomination",0xa48,53595,"Hammer of the Righteous",0x2,1640,0,2,0,0,0,nil,nil,nil
7/24 01:04:23.937 SPELL_AURA_APPLIED,0x0000000000000000,nil,0x80000000,0x010000000005B7DF,"Honorhammer",0x511,64568,"Blood Reserve",0x1,BUFF
7/24 01:04:23.953 SPELL_AURA_APPLIED,0x010000000005B7DF,"Honorhammer",0x511,0xF5300079A4121D7E,"Hulking Abomination",0xa48,31803,"Holy Vengeance",0x2,DEBUFF
7/24 01:04:23.953 SPELL_AURA_APPLIED_DOSE,0x010000000005B7DF,"Honorhammer",0x511,0xF1300079A90653AC,"Shadow Adept",0x10a48,31803,"Holy Vengeance",0x2,DEBUFF,4
7/24 01:04:24.343 SPELL_AURA_APPLIED,0x010000000005B7DF,"Honorhammer",0x511,0xF1300079A90653AC,"Shadow Adept",0x10a48,26017,"Vindication",0x2,DEBUFF
7/24 01:04:24.343 SPELL_AURA_APPLIED,0x010000000005B7DF,"Honorhammer",0x511,0xF5300079A4121D7E,"Hulking Abomination",0xa48,26017,"Vindication",0x2,DEBUFF

Let me translate that for you.

Hulking Abomination swung and hit me for 175
Honorhammer swung and hit Shadow Adept for 438
A third stack of Holy Vengeance went up on Shadow Adept
Honorhammer casts Hammer of the Righteous
Hammer of the Righteous hits both Shadow Adept and Hulking Abomination for 1641
I get a tick of Blood Reserve from Blood Draining
Hulking Abomination gets one stack of Holy Vengeance, proving that I had not hit him with anything else.
Shadow Adept's stack increases to 4
Both the Shadow Adept and the Hulking Abomination get Vindication applied

Now it could be argued that the Vindication proc actually came from the application of the first stack of the Vengeance DoT on the Hulking Abomination, however, that really doesn't matter in the final analysis. The Vengeance DoT was put on the Abomination by Hammer of the Righteous, so whether Hammer of the Righteous applied Vindication directly, or did it by applying the DoT, the net effect is you get Vindication on 3 mobs (4 if you Glyph Hammer of the Righteous) in an AoE scenario.

While I was doing this test, there was an Undead Warrior also killing mobs in the area. This is why I always copy over to the PVE PTR server. When I'm testing something I don't want to have to worry about some Hordie deciding he needs to test some PVP with me.

So here’s the TLDR summary:

• Vindication procs from Avengers Shield
• There is up to an .8 of a second delay in the debuff showing up
• Vindication procs from melee swing
• It's a 'chance on swing' and can and will fall off.
• Vindication procs on Hammer of the Righteous
• It never proced off of Exorcism

Ardent Defender

Since I was already out that way, I decided to test Ardent Defender. I flew up to the battlements and found one of those big 82 Elite Abominations walking around. The problem was it took a long time for him to put me into Ardent Defender range.

Now it’s important to point out that because he hits pretty weakly, about 700 damage per attack, he couldn’t put me into a Leapfrog situation, so the mitigation benefits I got from AD were exactly the same as they would have been on Live. Even knowing that, it was really nice to see AD working in the Combat Log. I really wish the Developers had added that functionality to AD when it was first introduced.

Eventually, he wore me down and I got an AD save. That is pure unmitigated WIN. It looks like you got a Battle Rez, but your buffs and debuffs stay since you didn’t… actually… you know… DIE.

You still get the Ardent Defender debuff after it saves you meaning it won’t save you again for 2 minutes. However, the debuff no longer prevents AD from working. I was seeing AD damage reduction while under the effect of the debuff. What other questions do people have about the PTR changes that they would like to see tested?