Dmg threshold - thats why fear wont break

[Deleted]

Player: Something I've always wondered is why caster CC has a damage threshold i.e. fear/hex, yet I can die in a single stun??
Blue: Dmg threshold = if you have a spell in flight or didn't retarget quickly enough. Stuns are supposed to allow damage.

*rofl* at this point: "Dmg threshold = if you have a spell in flight or didn't retarget quickly enough."

so thats the reason why I drop from 100% life to 40% in one fear; half the casts were in flight and the 20 dot ticks were not able to target other "things".

Im happy to finally understand how it works!

[Tya]

Fear breaks reliably after taking 10% of your max life in damage.

Either you got hit for half your life in one hit, or you're making things up.

[kosechi]

Fear breaks reliably after taking 10% of your max life in damage.

Either you got hit for half your life in one hit, or you're making things up.

it doesn't break after taking 10% of you hp, or after taking 50% of your hp.

either fear needs to be reworded or fear is legitimately broken.

[kleinlax21]

As far as I know, the break point of a fear is a mystery to me. Some break immediately, others break after I've recieved extensive damage. Either way, I think there should be some sort of concrete system by which the break point of any given fear is reached.

I'm not trying to complain about fears not breaking, I just wish I had the understanding of CC fundamentals to know when to expect any given fear to break.

[Malgru]

do you think fear breaks after a single blow deals 10% of your damage? that could explain why it doesn't break on dots but does on burst?

probably incorrect, but its the best guess i can give

[Sal the Shieldhog]

As a warlock, I can honestly say my fears break very quickly - Usually before I can get a Chaos Bolt off (and that's from going Fear -> CB, with Immolate, my demon, and whatever other person is on the target; It's the same even outside of BGs).

[HeroZero]

AS a Shadow Priest I can say I have feared someone then thrown a mindblast and full Devouring plague and watched them keep running...

[Nicola]

Oh look, another person complaining about fear.
Did you miss the memo that said that everyone and their mom can break fear on several different ways?

Also, fear breaks after about 10% damage, so unless you got hit by an ability that took 50% of your life in 1 hit, you're talking nonsense.

[Casisiempre]

Oh look, another person complaining about fear.
Did you miss the memo that said that everyone and their mom can break fear on several different ways?

Also, fear breaks after about 10% damage, so unless you got hit by an ability that took 50% of your life in 1 hit, you're talking nonsense.

That is definitely not true... Feral druids have one way to break fears: Trinket. And I have been feared for a full 8 seconds as my health plummeted from 80% to 40% and then instantly feared again for something like 3-5 seconds to drop me to 20%ish.

[Nicola]

That is definitely not true... Feral druids have one way to break fears: Trinket. And I have been feared for a full 8 seconds as my health plummeted from 80% to 40% and then instantly feared again for something like 3-5 seconds to drop me to 20%ish.

Yes, and I'm glad that berserk no longer gives fear immunity. Immunity to poly is already strong enough.
Not to mention, that some things in your story are simply impossible.

1) fear breaks on ~10% damage so if you took 40% damage, it means you got chaosbolted which leads to 2
2) a warlock is not waiting till fear is about to break to chaosbolt....
3) if you sit 8 sec in fear, bloodfear is still on cooldown so can't be used instantly to chainfear you
4) pvp is balanced around 3s, not 1v1. Not to mention warlocks should be rather easy to kill 1v1 as feral.

[Deleted]

so thats the reason why I drop from 100% life to 40% in one fear;

Base discussion on a lie.

/leave thread

[Vongimi]

You completely misinterpreted what the blue was saying... He was saying that spells already in flight/not retargeting quickly enough are causes of why a dmg threshold ability (roots/fear/hex) would BREAK, where a stun would not. Either way, I do think the way fear works should be presented a little better. I have played PvP for years and have played thousands of arena matches as well as hundreds of battlegrounds, and I know for a fact that I have sat in fears while multiple people wail on me until I die, or getting out of the fear just before I die, with no time to cast anything (or done massive damage to targets of my own fear, only to see them still running around). But on the other side of the coin, I have seen fears break from a dot tick instantly on both sides. It is an odd mechanic and I think it should either be cleaned up a bit (should NEVER go beyond 10% life, not simply have a greater chance of breaking, its not a stun) or better presented to players.

[Demetrion]

it doesn't break after taking 10% of you hp, or after taking 50% of your hp.

either fear needs to be reworded or fear is legitimately broken.

It does break. Stop spreading misinformation.

[Delaios]

Did you miss the memo that said that everyone and their mom can break fear on several different ways?

Exaggerate much? Unless I missed any, Will of the Forsaken, Trinket/EMFH, Berserker Rage, Lichborn, Bubble, Tremor Totem, Bestial Wrath and Iceblock are the ways to break fear. Out of those ways only Berserker Rage and Tremor Totem are decent counters to fear. All others either have a lengthy cooldown, or can serve better use. Iceblock and Bubble are major defensive cooldowns and Bestial Wrath is tied to burst.

[kosechi]

It does break. Stop spreading misinformation.

i will believe it breaks when i stop being able to hit people with double chaos waves on people in fears and not having fear break.
i will believe it when i stop being able to land CS/tfb heroic strikes on people in fears and not having fear break.

either the break point for fear needs to be more clearly worded, or fear is broken.

[Snuggli]

Pretty sure it got upped to 30%?

Even so, fear breaking at 10-15% still makes blood fear a 10s CD death coil.

[Casisiempre]

Yes, and I'm glad that berserk no longer gives fear immunity. Immunity to poly is already strong enough.
Not to mention, that some things in your story are simply impossible.

1) fear breaks on ~10% damage so if you took 40% damage, it means you got chaosbolted which leads to 2
2) a warlock is not waiting till fear is about to break to chaosbolt....
3) if you sit 8 sec in fear, bloodfear is still on cooldown so can't be used instantly to chainfear you
4) pvp is balanced around 3s, not 1v1. Not to mention warlocks should be rather easy to kill 1v1 as feral.

1) False... I have had significantly more than 10% damage done while feared
2) I never said it was a warlock. Usually priest fears are the ones that are the biggest hassle
3) Didn't say warlock fear
4) Still didn't say warlock fear

[Flaks]

do you think fear breaks after a single blow deals 10% of your damage? that could explain why it doesn't break on dots but does on burst?

probably incorrect, but its the best guess i can give

This seems likeliest and is the reason that Blizzard refuses to accept that there's a problem.

---------- Post added 2012-12-31 at 07:04 PM ----------

i will believe it breaks when i stop being able to hit people with double chaos waves on people in fears and not having fear break.
i will believe it when i stop being able to land CS/tfb heroic strikes on people in fears and not having fear break.

either the break point for fear needs to be more clearly worded, or fear is broken.

Warrior fear has ALWAYS broken on a single point of damage dealt. The only reason it wouldn't break is if you're shielded with an absorb.

[Yvaelle]

Exaggerate much? Unless I missed any, Will of the Forsaken, Trinket/EMFH, Berserker Rage, Lichborn, Bubble, Tremor Totem, Bestial Wrath and Iceblock are the ways to break fear. Out of those ways only Berserker Rage and Tremor Totem are decent counters to fear. All others either have a lengthy cooldown, or can serve better use. Iceblock and Bubble are major defensive cooldowns and Bestial Wrath is tied to burst.

If you count ways to prevent fear mid-cast the list is dramatically longer (is. Cloak of Shadows, Anti-Magic Shell, Ice Block, Feign Death, Displacer Beast, Spectral Guise, all Silence effects, all interrupts, all stuns, Vanish, Shadowmeld, all instant CCs, Line of Sight, etc). But, just counting things that can self-dispel fear, you missed a few: Fear Ward (good priests save it until they expect the fear so it isn't dispelled before the fear is cast), Unbound Will, Shamanistic Rage, Sear Magic, Recklessness until the last hotfix, Dampen Magic, Brew of CC break (in 5.2). Sparing all that, you also have defensive dispels from teammates.

Now, not all of those are directed specifically at this one CC (Fear) - but how many people have CC breaks directed specifically at Polymorph or Repentance? (like none, spare druids being fully immune to polymorph/hex/etc). Most people find it silly when people bitch about fear, because fear is one of the CC's most classes have the most defense against - especcially compared to other CC types (poly, repentance). It only takes 1 fear-specific break ability to cut off half of a CC chain and still save your trinket, that's a colossal advantage against this CC type (compared to other CC types) - and a lot of classes, and an entire race have that.

The real CC to worry about this expansion, that I suspect we will all look back on as the prime problem of MoP - is going to be the mass distribution of AoE CC effects (Shockwave, Leg Sweep, Capacitor Totems, Remorseless Winter). Stuns are such an incredibly potent CC by themselves, the ability to stun entire teams if they get too close to one another (which is sometimes necessary, like Spirit Link, or when boxxing an enemy caster) - is what we will remember being broken about all this.

@iWolfBanei

In like, WotLK - they reduced the damage threshold on fear from like 30% to 10% - but even when Fear was 30% threshold - compare that to an AoE stun, which is infinity threshold and far fewer specs have stun breaks than fear breaks.

---------- Post added 2012-12-31 at 07:11 PM ----------

Warrior fear has ALWAYS broken on a single point of damage dealt. The only reason it wouldn't break is if you're shielded with an absorb.

No I'm pretty sure Intimidating Shout is a standard fear on all non-primary targets, with the added advantage that it's physical not magical - so it can be cast while silenced, and cannot be dispelled or immune via AMS / Cloak / Unbound Will. On the primary target however, Intimidating Shout is a Cower effect (according to it, which is just dumb wording at this point) - effectively its a gouge on the primary, with an aoe fear effect to everyone else in range.

I remember back in Vanilla we used to have to use a macro for Intimidating Shout that had /stopattack after /cast Intimidating Shout - because back then it would just keep melee'ing and instantly break your CC if you didn't - there was also the trick of using it on a false primary target (ie. a pet) and then swapping targets and beating on the secondary feared target. I was a warrior back then and had two fear macros, one was /cast Intimidating Shout /stopattack /use Bandage (mostly for 1v1 or 1v2 scenarios), the other was /cast Intimidating Shout /stopattack /target [focus] or w/e - so I could say, drag a melee to their healer, fear the melee (cower) and swap to the feared healer.

[Flaks]

Unless they changed in mop, as a warrior player since 2005 I have constantly had int shout break on both primary and alternate targets on a single hit be it auto-attack, shoot/throw or whatever.

As crazy as aoe stuns are, they ARE getting nerfed. Unlike fear which get flat out ninja buffed coming into mop. It used to have a low damage threshold. I think it was 10% in cata which was a sweetspot. With MoP, we have more fears than ever AND the damage threshold has gone to shit. I have been feared 100-20% by locks and spriests in duels MANY times. It's not anyone's imagination. It's a fact. Fear is broken. Blizzard is unable to accept that the definition of "threshold" has become more flimsy for whatever reason.

Fear also has counters to it unlike other cc's because it's just that much better. Poly heals your target to full. Hex has a long ass cooldown topped with leaving your target in control of their character. Cyclone is getting hit by a massive nerf bat for feral and for the other two druid specs it's kind of necessary (it's not aoe AND has a cast time to it). Fear on the other hand is basically no different than a stun in it's current state. It lasts longer than any stun, allows massive amounts of damage to be dealt, is aoe, and most often instant cast.