Mastery Discussion

Level 64 - Ethereal Strikes

Your damaging attacks deal an additional 7% "Ethereal" damage. Does not affect damage over time effects.

Spoiler!

Why is this even called Ethereal Strikes? The follow-up damage is based on the initial hit which already goes through armor/resistance calculations which makes the follow-up damage "type" being "Ethereal" useless.

E.g. You hit a boss for 14,725 with your Shock Pulse (My Stats with no BUFFS or anything) and your Shock Pulse is actually an "average" of 16,880 on its full tool-tip damage. If the calculations for Ethereal Strikes damage were done before armor/resist were factored then you should expect 1,181.6 on your "Ethereal" Strikes damage, but instead you're handed 1,030 which is 7% from 14,725.

Here's the SECOND problem. How do you expect 3 GCDs of 1,030 or even 1,181.6 to compete against Deliberate Strikes's 4212 (My Stats) which pops at 3 stacks? That's roughly pitting;

Ethereal Strikes:

• [ 14,725 x 3 ] + [ 1,030 x 3 ] = [ 44,175 ] + [ 3,090 ]

Deliberate Strikes:

• [ 14,725 x 3 ] + [ 4,212 x 3 ] = [ 44,175 ] + [ 12,636 ]

You would need to at least increase Ethereal Strikes to 28.5% instead of 7% for it to be competitive OR 25% if you want to actually go through with making sense out of it being "Ethereal" type by calculating Ethereal Strikes damage before armor/resist stats.

Level 64 - Steady Strikes

Damage is increased by 7% but reduces your chance to crit by 4%.

Spoiler!

I don't even know where to begin to explain how pathetic this Mastery is. It's like there wasn't any thought given to it at all, almost as if a few numbers were thrown together and called it a day. I can understand that "Ethereal Strikes" has a secondary effect of reducing Primal Call CD by 50% which "can" be "good" for BM in PVP (sort of), but there is ZERO scenario where you would take Steady Strikes considering it doesn't even have a secondary to go along with it. If it wasn't for the DoT/HoT duration increase, precision would probably be in the same scenario.

The following is using 1 GCD as an example, the figures below are my stats;

Code:

Shock Pulse (NON-CRIT): 14,725
Shock Pulse     (CRIT): 27,977.5 = 14,725 * 1.9 (1.9 is CP Cap without including Talent Bypass)

Building Rage (NON-CRIT): 4,212
Building Rage     (CRIT): 8002.8 = 4,212 * 1.9 (1.9 is CP Cap without including Talent Bypass)

Steady Strikes Critical Hit Penalty = 0.04

Steady Strikes Multiplier = 1.07
Ethereal Strikes Multiplier = 1.07

My Character's Physical Crit = 0.43


TOTAL DAMAGE = [ (Critical Hit Chance * Average Critical Hit Damage)
               + ((1 - Critical Hit Chance) * Average NON-Critical Hit Damage) ]

Steady Strikes

Code:

TOTAL DAMAGE = [ ( (Physical Crit - Steady Strikes Critical Hit Penalty) * Shock Pulse CRIT)
               + ((1 - (Physical Crit - Steady Strikes Critical Hit Penalty) ) * Shock Pulse NON-CRIT)
               ] * Steady Strikes Multiplier
               = 21,331.39

Ethereal Strikes

Code:

TOTAL DAMAGE = [ (Physical Crit * (Shock Pulse CRIT + [ Shock Pulse CRIT * -(1 - Ethereal Strikes Multiplier) ] ) )
               + ((1 - Physical Crit) * (Shock Pulse NON-CRIT + [ Shock Pulse NON-CRIT * -(1 - Ethereal Strikes Multiplier) ] ) )
               ]
               = 21,898.60

Deliberate Strikes

Code:

TOTAL DAMAGE = [ (Physical Crit * (Shock Pulse CRIT + Building Rage CRIT) )
               + ((1 - Physical Crit) * (Shock Pulse NON-CRIT + Building Rage NON-CRIT) )
               ]
               = 26,320.16

Steady Strikes "can" scale better with higher hitting abilities but our highest hitting ability is not high enough to really off-set Burning Rage. Even if it was, those are cool-downs and there's a much larger difference created by the lower hitting abilities than the high hitting abilities "that do" exceed Burning Rage's scaling to keep up.

Level 65 - Power Variation

DAMAGE:
Channels 31,688 Ethereal damage over 3s to the target and up to 7 other enemies within 7 meters of the target. Can move while channeling.

HEAL:
Restores health to the ally equal to 50% of the Warrior's Maximum Health each second. Lasts 3s. Can move while channeling.

TL;DR #1: Deliberate Strikes is either too strong or the other 64 Masteries (except Precision Strike) is "way too weak". Considering the DPS state of Warriors relative to other classes (Assuming I can trust the numbers that people have put forth), normalising Deliberate Strikes with the other Masteries seems like it would be a terrible idea. I don't think Ethereal Strikes requires anything more than a straight buff as it'll be mainly good for PVP and balanced enough to be used in PVE for certain scenarios. Steady Strikes on the other hand would need its own identity with a Secondary perk if possible.

TL;DR #2: Please also look into the equivalent Masteries for the Rogues as they would more or less be in the same situation. It's actually worse for them with their Timed Focus which is the equivalent of Deliberate Strikes because their explosion takes place every 5 attacks instead of 3 like the Warriors and the scaling on it is even worse. Yes, they run on 1s GCD, but Warriors also have 1s GCD in Paragon which is where Deliberate Strikes is being mainly used. My Deliberate Strikes is almost 25% or more above an equivalent Rogue's Timed Focus simply because I can pop 5 before they can pop 3 and 1 of my 5 is stronger than their 1 of their 3. In terms of Calling to Calling balance, it's off, but their Timed Focus may be more normalised with their other Masteries. I'm not the Rogue expert, so...

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