Execution Sentence: 3.4K on Training Dummy; 300 on player

[Zorch]

So I was messing around on a training dummy in Stormwind in Ret spec and was surprised to see I was consistently hitting it with 3.4K Execution Sentence, which kind of blew my mind... seems way high, considering he has literally almost nothing for gear outside of questing to 20.

Anyway, I queued for an Arena Skirmish to see how it did on a live player, and it only hit for a little over 300 damage, lol...

I know armor, versatility, etc. factor into damage done in PvP, but it seems very odd that this finisher only does around 8% of what it did on a training dummy — is there some incredibly weird formula that would explain why or are training dummies just a piss poor way of testing damage abilities?

Thanks.
[doublepost=1612723193,1612721977][/doublepost]Edit: Just did one for 4.2k on the training dummy. Again, I know this isn’t impressive or anything, but this guy is using heirlooms and might not even have all greens in his equipment slots, haha.

Would be curious to see what this translates to when fully BiS on both dummy and players... assuming nothing too crazy, otherwise I feel like everyone would be Ret and just globally people after 3 cooldowns and popping Execution Sentence every minute.

 

[Zorch]

Shhhhhh don’t walk about training dummies around here....

Haha, I’m going to assume this stems from the whole Fury/Whirlwind dual Crusader proc experiment that everyone got heated over.

 

[BANKONE]

Prob stems from the watergate incident where folks were copy/pasting twinkinfo posts on OP gear straight to bliz forums.

 

[Chops]

I know armor, versatility, etc. factor into damage done in PvP, but it seems very odd that this finisher only does around 8% of what it did on a training dummy — is there some incredibly weird formula that would explain why or are training dummies just a piss poor way of testing damage abilities?

If its a crit, remember that crits dont hit for full value in instanced pvp. Also, obviously, you're essentially a 29 in level 20 gear in instanced pvp so you get less vers/mastery.

Though I think the big one might be that the bonus damage Execution Sentence accumulates between when its cast and when it lands is going to be considerably less against an actual opponent. You've got 8 seconds of free-for-all damage on a dummy, where a live players going to be kiting, mitigating and forcing you to use globals to mitigate instead of do dmg.

 

[Zorch]

If its a crit, remember that crits dont hit for full value in instanced pvp. Also, obviously, you're essentially a 29 in level 20 gear in instanced pvp so you get less vers/mastery.

Though I think the big one might be that the bonus damage Execution Sentence accumulates between when its cast and when it lands is going to be considerably less against an actual opponent. You've got 8 seconds of free-for-all damage on a dummy, where a live players going to be kiting, mitigating and forcing you to use globals to mitigate instead of do dmg.

This is kind of what I was thinking/afraid of.. not because I think you should do the same damage on an inanimate, naked training dummy, but it makes it kind of difficult to gauge how things perform without hopping into the fray and trying to crunch numbers after-the-fact.

Again, not complaining, but it would be cool if training dummies had some sort of baseline or adjustment you could do from a PvP perspective and not just a random mob around your level.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Nurf]

It might be a hidden PVP nerf. I was excited about the Frost DK talent Cold Heart because it was critting insane amounts on a dummy but in BGs it was like a quarter of the damage. Blizzard's lack of information in tooltips is frustrating. I wish there was an option to turn on full tooltips with as much info but gotta dumb it down for new players and whatever. Fun fact: even though it says Cold Heart is supposed to be Frost damage the details says it's in the physical school of damage... I don't understand this game sometimes.

Edit: I don't play my ret that much but I did notice the difference in damage for Execution Sentence awhile ago too. I get the crit value in instanced is lower but the damage of ES was waaaaay more than the normal nerf of other abilities

 

[Zorch]

Totally agree that Blizzard tooltips are a clusterfuck and, in some cases, just straight up wrong.

I tested a couple more times and got Execution Sentence to hit for 4.9k a handful of times... which means it basically does like 6% of that value in a PvP setting, which just seems way off (again, even when factoring all the other math and shit that’s involved).

Oh well!

 

[Warglave]

I get the crit value in instanced is lower

All i keep finding via web search is that it cannot crit and it's initial damage was reduced by 25% back in november. Were you surrounded by other players whilst molesting your dummy? Sometimes they can add debuffs to them...

I dont know how you're getting such high numbers, are you doing 15k damage in 8 seconds? It's the base + 20%. Looking at mine his base is 459 so that's leaving you 3500 (20% of 17500) for the remaining damage... right? Seems a lot.
(oops, 4500... even worse. With crusader up my initial damage tooltip went to 750 or so.)

Or did you buy chance find a dummy vastly lower level than yourself? You'll get legacy-type damage on those...

edit- or.... blizz just has another broken thing they did half-assed bandaid to.

 

[Kethcup]

Everytime I hear a newbie talk about Cold Heart or Execution Sentence, I shake my head.

There is exclusive PvP scaling on quite a lot of moves, which while balanced at high levels, breaks at low levels.

One such tuning is Aimed Shot. Another is Arcane Blast.

Keep an eye on Blue Posts pertaining to PvP they matter a lot in the twinkling community.

 

[Zorch]

All i keep finding via web search is that it cannot crit and it's initial damage was reduced by 25% back in november. Were you surrounded by other players whilst molesting your dummy? Sometimes they can add debuffs to them...

I dont know how you're getting such high numbers, are you doing 15k damage in 8 seconds? It's the base + 20%. Looking at mine his base is 459 so that's leaving you 3500 (20% of 17500) for the remaining damage... right? Seems a lot.
(oops, 4500... even worse. With crusader up my initial damage tooltip went to 750 or so.)

Or did you buy chance find a dummy vastly lower level than yourself? You'll get legacy-type damage on those...

edit- or.... blizz just has another broken thing they did half-assed bandaid to.

The training dummy I’m using is in Old Town in SW, shows Level 19, and I’m 100% sure there are no debuffs on it and I don’t have a single buff either.

You’re correct about the tooltip too, which is why I’m even more surprised — the base damage mine shows is even less than yours and the abilities I do after popping Execution Sentence are Judgment, Crusader Strike, Blade of Justice, and Templar’s Verdict, none of which do more than like 250 max, so it’s inconceivable that 20% of all of those added up could get me to almost 5k total damage.

Something is totally fucked about this ability, lol.

gg, Blizz.

 

[Warglave]

https://www.wowhead.com/blue-tracker

 

[Warglave]

Yeah, on some WoD mobs i was doing like 1700-2000 with it (hard to not kill them before it lands sometimes).

Biggest was 2500, still way higher than it should be going off the toolltip. I'll check what it does with no bonus.

edit- lol.... exactly 459, like it said. So clearly it's a bonus damage issue.

lol, more than 1/2 my damage but only supposed to be using 20% of it... gg blizz.

 

[Zorch]

Everytime I hear a newbie talk about Cold Heart or Execution Sentence, I shake my head.

There is exclusive PvP scaling on quite a lot of moves, which while balanced at high levels, breaks at low levels.

One such tuning is Aimed Shot. Another is Arcane Blast.

Keep an eye on Blue Posts pertaining to PvP they matter a lot in the twinkling community.

Thanks for the link — good to know.

That said, you created a brand new topic to literally address the exact two examples being discussed in a separate recent topic (which clearly was your motivation for this)...without commenting in that thread...?

Unless I’m missing something, the only reference to Execution Sentence there is:

• Retribution
  • Execution Sentence (Talent) now has a more pronounced sound.

 

[Vandiir]

An answer to the original post, mainly this:

So I was messing around on a training dummy in Stormwind in Ret spec and was surprised to see I was consistently hitting it with 3.4K Execution Sentence, which kind of blew my mind... seems way high, considering he has literally almost nothing for gear outside of questing to 20.

Anyway, I queued for an Arena Skirmish to see how it did on a live player, and it only hit for a little over 300 damage, lol...

[...]

Try testing on the dummies at the paladin class hall instead of the dummies at Stormwind [or Ironforge]. You'll quickly notice that your Execution Sentences [ES] on those paladin class hall dummies are more accurate [in terms of what your ES may deal on PvE targets. PvP of course can be a different story] than your ES hits on Stormwind/Ironforge dummies. For example, my Ret's ES on the paladin class hall dummy dealt 2.5k or so [and it's nowhere near BiS yet, though has Crusader enchant], while that same ES and rotation prior to ES landing dealt 5k+ on a Stormwind dummy.

An expansion or two ago during either Legion or BFA, I remember level 20 affli-warlocks had a skill-damage-ability [from a talent, dealt extra damage based on the warlock's remaining damage from DoTs left on the target] which dealt broken-amounts-of-damage on Stormwind dummies, while it was a very different situation on actual PvE targets. I won't be surprised if that similar kind of bug is also present for Ret's current Execution Sentence on some dummies.
[doublepost=1612758708,1612757533][/doublepost]

Biggest was 2500, still way higher than it should be going off the toolltip. I'll check what it does with no bonus.

edit- lol.... exactly 459, like it said. So clearly it's a bonus damage issue.

lol, more than 1/2 my damage but only supposed to be using 20% of it... gg blizz.

Not helpful info spoiled. Sorry for this post.

Execution Sentence, since it's a Holy-Damage skill, benefits from Ret's Mastery [and thus Mastery may also buff the 20%-from-other-skills part added to ES].

That may explain what you observed on your brief parse. Though, I'm still unsure. Like, a mastery buff of 40% applied to 20% of your damage-from-other-abilities may mean 28% instead of 20%, which wouldn't be enough to explain that parse.

 

[Warglave]

Do you happen to recall what your mastery % was when you took that brief parse?

19%

What doesnt add up for your theory is casting it then doing zero damage resulted in exactly the number the tooltip says.

I only did it once, but i doubt it's that exact a coincidence... now the big one had crusader up and maybe a trinket proc, but by definition it's supposed to add 20% of the damage done in that 8 seconds, and it did more damage than the total.

edit- adding up that pic quick it looks like damn near 100% + 700+ for the base damage (what it tooltips with crusader).

With crusader up my initial damage tooltip went to 750 or so.

 

[Vandiir]

19%

What doesnt add up for your theory is casting it then doing zero damage resulted in exactly the number the tooltip says.

The numbers for the tooltip already factored in mastery, so casting it then doing zero damage and seeing ES deal what the tooltip says it'd do [without the +20% damage from other sources] makes sense.

In summary, what seems to be off is in how the +20% damage-from-other-abilities is calculated, though I'm repeating what's mentioned earlier in this thread already by folks like you and others.

As for my earlier explanation that mastery may play a part, I acknowledge [after a quick check] that it's nowhere near enough in explaining ES' damage. Like, even if one had 40% mastery, 40% more of 20% means... 28% instead of 20% [or if 19% mastery, 20%[1.19]=23.8% instead of 20%], which is nowhere near enough to explain the parses on ES [at least on paladin class hall dummy and PvE foes like Kuu'rat just outside WoD alliance-garrison].

 

[Henry]

Broken game, small indie developer, use Zeal over Execution Sentence

 

[Kethcup]

Unless I’m missing something, the only reference to Execution Sentence there is:

I believe it's an old patch, like pre BFA, that made Execution Sentence deal 30-50% less damage in PvP than in PvE? Gotta double check, but none of the old ones from all the way back in Legion when PvP Tuning was introduced have been reverted in anyway.

 

[Heike-Chan]

This post reminds me, back in BfA after stacking Unstable Afflictions on a training dummy and using deathbolt, it could hit for thousands, check old screenshot below.

Maybe it's related with that? At the time I theorised that the spell was just broken and doing extra damage to mobs which scaled up to 120, that's because it was also doing thousands of damage against Coren Direbrew, the boss of the Brewfest Dungeon thingy.

 

[ZenwØw]

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