Cooldowns and Forbearance on Beta
I’m sure folks have some questions about our menu of cooldowns in the next expansion pack: what’s available to us, when can we use them, how much do they mitigate, and (most importantly) is that terrible debuff Forbearance still in-game.
To answer the last question first, I am saddened to report Forbearance still survives, much like the UFO over Houston, post-nuking, in Independence Day. Target remains.
On the bright side, from what I could tell Divine Protection and Ardent Defender do not trigger it and can be used while your are afflicted with Forbearance. So finally (well, for now, don’t pop the champagne yet) we’re not the only tank locked out of our defensive cooldowns if one is used.
I am also happy to report that Ardent Defender (like Divine Protection right now) is off the GCD, so you can pop it at any point. Likewise I noticed that you can pop Divine Protection and Ardent Defender at the same time, though I’m not sure you would want to since the damage mitigation wouldn’t stack. I could only see doing that if you needed AD’s safety net and had buyer’s remorse from popping DP first.
Which brings me to my next point–the low cooldown on Divine Protection is pretty nice and I suspect will require a major attitude shift when it comes to survival. I’m thinking the model will in the future be something like Ardent Defender is popped as an “oh crap” button and Divine Protection is used as close to once per minute (if the minute cooldown holds) as possible to reduce damage taken over the duration of the fight and thus conserve healer mana. If the boss has predictable, regular damage spikes that would be the best point for it.
As always, standard beta disclaimer applies: everything can change!
On a slightly different note: I mentioned in an earlier post that Holy Shield was bugged on beta. Sometimes it would give 1.5% at 3 Holy Power stacks, sometimes 180%. Never 15%!
Last night while doing a few quick quests, I popped HS and hit 2013% bonus block chance. A minute later I pulled 1347%. I think at that point I was meta-blocking.
Armory Feed
@Rilgon
4 August 2010 at 10:42 am #
You block attacks that HAVEN’T EVEN HAPPENED YET.
*twilight zone music*
Rilgon Arcsinh’s last blog ..The Story Unfolds
@Rhidach
4 August 2010 at 10:54 am #
And then it turns out my shield is Hitler!
I award you 7 man points for the Independence day reference. Haha.
@Rhidach
4 August 2010 at 10:54 am #
I gladly accept these.
Yeah, I was thinking DP was going to become almost rotational in use if the 1 minute CD remains. It seems like it’s intended to balance around short-term attacks (Breaths would be the best place to mitigate that mini-burst of damage) rather than, “AHHH! AD Proc’d! The sky is falling!
Panic.
Kermit-flail.
Run burning into orphanage.
saif’s last blog ..A bit of a break
@Rhidach
4 August 2010 at 12:17 pm #
Run burning into orphanage.
Awesome.
@hazmacewillraid
4 August 2010 at 12:07 pm #
So… the new Divine Protection is Barkskin? 20% damage reduction, 1 minute cooldown… the room is spinning, so many dancing bears with glowing wings… ahh!!
And it seems (for now) that, while DP doesn’t proc Forbearance, it is affected by it. Interesting.
@Rhidach
4 August 2010 at 12:18 pm #
I think the tooltip was just not changed. I believe I was able to use DP while under Forbearance. I’ll double-check tonight.
“… so many dancing bears with glowing wings… ahh!!”
I, good sir, lawled. That was my immediate reaction as well: wait, this seems very familiar and bear-colored. I am guessing that they want to normalize all of the “shield-walls” across the board since it is intended for there to be less ZOMG HEAL NOW damage, but it will be interesting to see if Pain Suppression and Hand of Sacrifice will be knocked down to match as well.
I think that good CD usage will be another way that ‘good’ tanks will be separated from ‘bad’ tanks in cata, if healer mana is going to be as big a issue as its been made out to be.
Where a ‘good’ tank will try to use them almost on CD to try to conserve the healers mana AND have them up for big attacks, while a ‘bad’ tank will just use them as needed.
@Rhidach
5 August 2010 at 8:28 am #
I think you are definitely right. Reducing damage by 20% for basically 1/6th of the fight is going to be the mark of a conscientious tank.