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I'm hoping people get this whole holiday thing out of their system and we begin some serious raiding next week and curious what people have experienced so far in raids with safeguard.
With the changes now to vengence and threat flying through the roof from it I've been wondering just how much use safeguard has been getting in raids with it basically being a shieldwall on the tank/ot for 6 seconds every 30.
Basically my option is to go with safeguard, or pick up cruelty in lieu of it.
I've personally never found any real use for the talent other than perhaps LK and potentially Chimearon in BRD.
It's too situational for my liking.
I am of the same mindset as that, however with it being 30seconds now instead of 45, and threat being insane compared to what it was once vengence starts rolling I was just curious as to how viable people find it. Hence why I was curious if anyone has been using it for progression or just kind of skipped over it instead.
30% damage reduction every 30 sec? Why wouldn't you take that if you were the OT?
I never speced into it and I don't plan to do so. At least if there will not be a boss where it is really OP.
My problem wit Saveguard is not the talent itself, but what Intervening the tank does to the healers. Another problem is that one can seldom use it at all.
To use Saveguard you have to Intervene the MT. When you intervene, you get dmg of the next 2 or 3 hits that the MT would have got. The MT takes less dmg now but you - a person that would not need a heal normally - needs the attention of the healers now. For some healers it's not nice to switch targets while tank healing, because they gain healing power by staying on one healing target. When they switch back to the MT their heals will be smaller than before. Additionally healers have to coordinate to heal both of you while normally only one of you would have needed a heal. This needs time and reduces the healing done to the MT in a situation where you thought it was best to give the MT a damage reduction buff. It doesn't feels like a good idea.
The second problem is easily explaned: Many encounters that need more than one tank have stuff to tank for both of them (ok ICC was not like that). If that's the case than you probably should not stand in the same place as the other does or you have to kite around (well Intervene may be helpfull in some of them to go around but most times you don't want to kite the mobs to the boss because they are dangerous in melee range....) Some of the others give you a debuff that does something really bad if you get dmg from the boss. So Intervening while waiting for the debuff to run out is a bad idea. On others you should be either at the same position as the other tank all the time or at a quite different position...
Both arguments can be argued against. Especially for a well coordinated raid. But I like to spec for my own survivablity (or my own dmg). Especially since I don't like tanking assignments that are fixed because one of the tanks has a special ability and the whole strategy is designed around this. Sure if needed I will use it.
We already talked about this in game, but I feel this needs to be in puiblic forums to explain an opinion that is not share by most of the warrior community, and that needs to be modified since you decided to bash my talents publicly.
First, What is safeguard ? Each time you intervene a target, it reduce the damage they take by 30% for 9 sec (ANY damage), 30 sec coldown. which means for around 30% of the time. Now, it is clear that considering all the mobility that us, warriors, have plus abilities like vigilance and safeguard, we are currently wonderful offtanks.
Why not use something else than safeguard ?
You could use those 2 points into something like battle trance, but who really has threat issues nowadays with the current model of vengance, the only moment where you may have issues of threat in a fight are the first several seconds where you will more than likely use a Missdirect oin you to ease de job. Ergo, using talents in threat talents where has you could use them to ease the hard job of your healers by any ways is a wrong decision.
Why use safeguard as a talent ?
As previously quickly mentionned, healers have a pretty intensive (and fun) job in cataclysm, finding the right balance between mana efficiency and healing efficiency to the optimal level is not easy at all.
Anything that reduces the healing required will be of some use so, I decided to how a few examples of how safeguard can be useful :
1 : Right now, this boss is not an issue in normal mode, but http://www.wowhead.com/spell=92036 hurts a lot, it is very likely to be an issue in heroic mode. 30% of damage reduction of this ability equals (34125 to 35875 Fire damage every 1 sec to all enemies in front of him * 4 second * .30 damage in % saved from safeguard) = 43 000 damage saved without healing required on an ability with a potential of 143500 damage, which cannot kill someone, but in combinantion with the heroic factor and the AoE before and after it is better than a LOT of abilities.
2 : Maloriak, Red phase : Consuming Flames plus Scorching Blast. The damage income on the hardest target to heal is (4500*1.5*9 ( 9 second because intervene doesnt last the full effect and I need 1 second to cast it) + 500 000/10 (flamethrower) *.3 = 33225 damage absorbed
Those are just a few example, but every single raids has a few bosses where a single target DPS or healer will take more damage than the others, and helping your healers and not focus on ONLY doing your job is the mark between a very good player and an excellent one. The Glyph of intervene is not necessary because the targets of my safeguard are not getting hit by physical hits 90% of the time casted.
And I say this in a way that incites debates about it if you want, but I strongly beleive my point is an edge and a little *Niche* that blizzard gave to the warrior that has a great deal of unused potential in the given circumstances.
I posted this on the main forums, and it truly explains my stance on Safeguard, one of the best talents of the warriors.
As a Shaman healer, I actually get more healing done if you Intervene (because then I can roll Riptide on you rather than wasting it on someone with full HP OR wasting ticks on the one I had already rolling on the tank)
The same goes for Paladins with Beacon of Light, allowing them to heal 50% extra on another target.
In fact, the only classes I really see having a problem with this is Druids and Disc Priests that do not shield you pre-Intervene.
On top of that, Safeguard helps reduce tank damage, so even in a situation where you lose healing on the tank, you still gain far more damage reduction back from it.
Second argument is not accurate as well.
Magmaw, Atremedes, Chimaeron, Halfus Wyrmbreaker, V&T, Al'akir and large parts of Maloriak, Cho'gall, Nefarian etc. all require only one tank to be 'active'
Especially on Chimaeron I could argue that Intervene is far easier to eat the Double Strike. On Cho'gall it helps you tank swap really easy.
as for spending a tallent point on SG, its a wasted tallent imo. at best your using it a handfull of times in a fight. more often then not, you wont use it at all. Theres nothing wrong with the ability at all.... but spending tallent points is just a waste
You did not bring any arguments to the discussion execpt that you do not use it enough to be useful. The only 2 places you could use those 2 points into are Battle Trance or War academy, which both increase ur threat input, but in Cataclysm, especially with vengeance, who needs help with threat ? it is all about helping the survability of the group. And There is a LOT of fight where having a 30% reduction damage on a target that has a magical debuff can be the difference between life and death.
To the people advocating safeguard, is the 10% threat reduction ever an issue? I can see how it's nice when swapping off but, chaining intervene seems like it could cause problems on a the other tank.
Personally I have 1 pt in safeguard, mainly because I don't have anywhere else to put it, it could go away when i tweak my spec or whatnot, but for now my spec is working fine, and having safeguard could come in handy, so I figured why not.
When I played a Warrior (WotLK), I had an offtank spec with safeguard. I loved it, especially on fights like Mimiron. That extra defensive cooldown on the MT could be quite helpful.
I had a situation on Chim the other day where my OT was taunting the double strikes and then for some reason decided to intervene me instead on one of them and the 10% was enough to give him agro (since we'd been taunting back and forth all fight up to that point), which was annoying and potentially fatal but had he been intervening instead of taunting the double strikes the whole time, I think it would have been pretty cool (but I'm not sure that intervene is up often enough to make that happen).
Outside of that though when he uses it the healers are pretty aware that he doesn't actually have agro (something about a red box around your name in grid), and triage him back up as if he was any other raid member taking damage for no good reason... that is, intervene/safeguard has never caused a wipe afaik, and it has some good utility to help mitigate magic damage like flame breaths and whatnot.
I don't really think it is a "required" talent for raiding, but it has it's uses even for a MT, for example, it can be used to save a tunnelvisioned healer from the prime experiments in the Maloriak encounter (and then charge/intercept right back to the boss before he gets close enough for the add to buff him, obviously). I don't spec it currently but if I needed to at some point I wouldn't hesitate to do so.
It no longer reduces threatQuote:
Originally Posted by Muffin Man
You're likely thinking of Vigilance. Intervene most assuredly reduces threat by 10%.Quote:
Originally Posted by JollyWarrior
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=3411
Oh shitty shit, you're rightQuote:
Originally Posted by Andenthal
The other Tank and I do not have any threat issues, but as a Pro-safeguard warrior. I would say that some warriors are missing the point, this is not really used on the other tank most of the time, it is used on one of the DPSers whos taking heavy magic damage.
Why only limit it to other tanks? Has it's uses during the pillar phase on Nefarian for classes without defensive cooldowns (eg: hunter) during electrocute.
I wouldn't dare using it on chimaeron, having a caustic slime on any of you two and it's almost over - besides that you don't want two bring two tank (specced) anyways.
Brilliant talent for Cho'gal and Magmaw, possibly others as well. As noted it can be used on bosses like Nefarian as well.
The intervene mechanic of hitting the 2:nd tank I'd say is less of an issue in Cataclysm than previous content as bosses relatively hit weaker than before. Still intervene + safeguard is quite a hefty damage reduction for the current tank.
An important corrections to a post above:
Safeguard is a 6s second buff that gives 30% damage reduction to ALL forms of damage. Since intervene has a 30s cool-down, Safeguard has at best a 20% uptime + the reduction of 1 attack every 30s.