Safeguard - How much are you using it in raids?

[Maèl]

I like Intervene and use it for the mobility and sometimes even for the protection aspect.

Safeguard is a very, very good talent and healers would kill for it. But as a tank I have to choose between the likes of Safeguard, War Academy, Thunderstruck, Heavy Repercussions and other optional talents. I'm afraid it loses to most of them. It would fit my playstyle but I value other talents higher.

[Narph]

Ultimately it's not my job as a tank to lessen the damage taken on none-tanks other than positioning mobs and possibly interrupting. While i agree that it would be nice to help out on that, it's not worth 2 talent points and especially not on such a situational talent that isn't critical at any point in any fight.

With all due respect, I consider this a very poor argument, anything that any players can do to change the life or death of another player should be done to give you the best chances to succeed hard encounters.

You know what makes people get "hit by many many shadow volleys at once"? It's not RNG. It happens when people are too close together, which is exactly what happens when you intervene someone.

It has a 1 yard splash and there is definitely RNG in this single target spell, please, confirm your information before giving a baseless argument. The platforms are so small that I can actually intervene someone without even moving (if you are less than 4 yards away, you wont even move. If you really need data to prove that, I will gladly fraps it to prove that safeguard is a beautiful element in the warriors arsenal

[Lightmgl]

With all due respect, I consider this a very poor argument, anything that any players can do to change the life or death of another player should be done to give you the best chances to succeed hard encounters.



It has a 1 yard splash and there is definitely RNG in this single target spell, please, confirm your information before giving a baseless argument. The platforms are so small that I can actually intervene someone without even moving (if you are less than 4 yards away, you wont even move. If you really need data to prove that, I will gladly fraps it to prove that safeguard is a beautiful element in the warriors arsenal

Does it really splash 1 yard? I keep seeing that posted in places but I've never actually seen it splash in our fights and the spell descriptions say nothing about it. The only place I've ever actually seen it say that is in guides. I assumed it was misinformation which those guides are typically full of such as how the Chimaeron guide used to have a completely borked strategy. From all my observations it simply hits 5 people on 25 man and 3 people on 10 man no matter what.

I guess its possible we've never had issues cause 1 yard is so small that you would have to be right on top of another person for it to happen.

[Papapaint]

how the Chimaeron guide used to have a completely borked strategy.

?

[Stengel]

It has a 1 yard splash and there is definitely RNG in this single target spell, please, confirm your information before giving a baseless argument. The platforms are so small that I can actually intervene someone without even moving (if you are less than 4 yards away, you wont even move. If you really need data to prove that, I will gladly fraps it to prove that safeguard is a beautiful element in the warriors arsenal

It's not 1 yard splash, but okay. I still say Safeguard is only mildly useful for that fight and certainly not amazing. Divine Guardian, Power Word: Barrier are amazing there, not Safeguard.

Also, I did Halfus HC yesterday, had Safeguard specced but we never used it in our strat since I ended up tanking a drake.

[Passive]

Why do people take Heavy Repercussions and not Safeguard? If threats an issue, tell me why you're all reforging expertise and hit into mastery or avoidance. Do you not run with rogues or hunters? I've yet to see a strong arguement to not take this talent, unless you're 100% maintanking on a boss. Even then, there are plenty of tank swap situations and times you could still use it.

[Stengel]

Why do people take Heavy Repercussions and not Safeguard? If threats an issue, tell me why you're all reforging

Long-term threat is not an issue, that's why we are reforging our expertise and hit.
Burst threat is important and that's why we take Heavy Repercussions.

Even then, there are plenty of tank swap situations and times you could still use it.

Many situations where one could use Safeguard, very few where it's actually good, and no situation where it's a must.

[Brage]

With all due respect, I consider this a very poor argument, anything that any players can do to change the life or death of another player should be done to give you the best chances to succeed hard encounters.

I fully agree. But when i have alternatives that make me a better tank, "covering up other people's mistakes" is not enough reason to go with Safeguard for me.

[Katzazi]

I'm playing a healer and a tank. I've learned that it's much more important to the raid that the tank(s) survive than anybody else, including myself as a healer. Well ther may be some exceptions from this rule, but it's true for most encounters. If you loose one DD others may be enough to finish the encounter, if you lose a healer there may be other healers, or someone who can cover up with some healing while everybody else switch to more selfhealing stuff. But if your tank dies, chances are quite high that it's a wipe. If the boss is nearly down, you may be able to finish the encounter without the tank. But if that's the case you probably would be able to finish the encounter more easily if someone else would have died instead of the tank.

Sure, safeguard does not endanger the tank in every situation. But others do. Or they endanger other players, because the tank moved. Every change to the tank position may force the melee to change position too. So well it may save someone but it can make the encounter harder to beat at the same time, if you use it. At least if you use it to safe a rdm raid member.

Over half the times a raid member is in danger to die, the player screwed up. In many cases the player stands somewhere where one should not stand. Moving someone else to this position may be a bad idea. Some other mechanics hurt people around the player who screwed up, same for this - moving to them is nothing the healers would like to see. If it's something normally happening to the encounter, the player should and probably will use their own CDs first. Most classes have some good ones. Most of them should be enough to cover the problem. Healers will switch to them, too. It's their job, to react with heals to the debuff or whatever is going on, they will do it. If they think it's important, they will use their CDs. They are expecting the incoming dmg. And they definitly know who is low. So both the player and the healers probably will react faster than you. If you add your Safeguard to the mix it may just produce overheal or over-coverage of CDs. That's not usefull. So you definilty should only use it as the last possible CD for saving "normal" players.

If you need it, you have probably quite big problems with the execution of the encounter. Yes, it may be just enough to just get a kill. But in most cases you either would be fine without Safeguard, or you will probably wipe anyway, because you don't handle majore featers of the encounter in the right way.


The only exception to this may be to use it regularly to safe the other tank. But as people pointed out before, there are only few encounters where this is the case. There are also many other CDs which don't have so high opportunity costs and would cover the tank, too. So it highly depends on your raid-setup if it has a chance to be used for this situations. If you have enough other external CDs, Safeguard is just not needed. So it's definitly not a "must have" talent for every tank.


As for gag-order: It's quite usefull for pulling and positioning casters. And there are many situations, where a silence is better than a simplle interrupt. That's true for trash and sometimes even in boss encounters. Not every mob you are facing is imune to it. If you have only one tank spec it should be part of your spec. You will tank trash and it's highly worth to have it there. If you have two tanking specs you probably don't need it in both. But the question is what do you have two tanking specs for. Most would not only want to switch around two points, but would focus them for different situations. In most cases it's single target/boss focussed and trash/OT focussed. If I would have to decide between Gag Order and Safeguard for the pure MT spec, I would chose the silence. Because Intervening is very seldom possible in tank&spanc situations. As for the trash/OT spec, Gag Order just belongs here. It's utility that will be usefull in many situations in such a spec. With taking Gag Order you may just be able to prevent the bad situation for which you would need Safeguard. Most stuff that can only be lived through with a DR-CD, can be avoided. Preventing the start of another cast for some seconds longer may be part of it.

[Lightmgl]

?

Sorry, I was referring to wowwiki there when they had the only strat guides up and they said tanks should switch on 3 breaks. Most places on the internet just copy the strategy guides out there without checking the info and alot of them end up with a slew of misinformation like this 1 yard nefarian shadowflame barrage splash that you can find posted all over the internet.

[gacktt]

I'd actually use it if it weren't for that 0 brain mechanic were it removes threat, awesome design from blizz the few times I want to use intervene on the offtank I can't due to him losing threat over me.

[Passive]

I have hunters and rogues for my burst threat on the pull.

There are plenty of ways around the threat component. You can intervene the other tank right before they taunt. In the case of Chimaeron, I'm off taking an add to the entrance of the room and by the time i get back the other tank has plenty of threat for me to safeguard them.

I can understand not taking it if you have no rogues or hunters, or if you're doing farm content and really just want to gear for threat. But we're talking progression here and I think any warrior not taking it in a progression build is missing out on something that could make the difference.

Still not seen a decent arguement to not take it!

[Eetabeetay]

In the case of Chimaeron, I'm off taking an add to the entrance of the room and by the time i get back the other tank has plenty of threat for me to safeguard them.

Chimaeron doesn't have any adds. Not sure what fight you're talking about.

I can understand not taking it if you have no rogues or hunters, or if you're doing farm content and really just want to gear for threat. But we're talking progression here and I think any warrior not taking it in a progression build is missing out on something that could make the difference.

I've had more wipes due to lack of dps than there not being enough cooldowns in the raid. Go do some heroic bosses and see how much that safeguard is helping you on all those 1% wipes.

Still not seen a decent arguement to not take it!

Read any of my posts in this thread. The talent is ridiculously situational. Whenever it actually IS possible to use it without screwing up something in the encounter its not needed at all.

Also - Burst threat isn't just for the pull.