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  1. #1

    Make AMZ an actual raid cooldown?

    What are your thoughts on having AMZ be retooled into an actual raid cooldown? Right now it stops what, 140K damage? That is a drop in the bucket most fights. I would love to see it retooled to something like a warrior's demoralizing banner or a Pally's Devo Aura or something that gives us some raid utility. I'm curious to see if anyone else had thoughts along this line. And yes, I do understand that it would *gasp* affect PvP, so please keep that in mind with your suggestions.

    Personally, I'd like to see it become like Pally's Devo Aura. Say "AMZ reduces magical damage taken in the zone by 30% for 15 seconds" or something along those lines. I think that would make it enough that it could be used in certain raid situations and have an actual effect, but still not be big enough to be a complete PvP game changer. Thoughts?

  2. #2
    Field Marshal Wiizper's Avatar
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    We use it in my guild on several occasions actually.

    So yes, it does work as a raid cooldown.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Wiizper View Post
    We use it in my guild on several occasions actually.

    So yes, it does work as a raid cooldown.
    Yep^ mine gets used often as well in raiding situation but thats not to say I wouldn't like it to be a flat percentage damage reduction rather than the 140k. It does have its uses however. I think it would be great at 30-40% reduction for 5-10 secs in PVE.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Deatheryn View Post
    Yep^ mine gets used often as well in raiding situation but thats not to say I wouldn't like it to be a flat percentage damage reduction rather than the 140k. It does have its uses however. I think it would be great at 30-40% reduction for 5-10 secs in PVE.
    That's kind of what I'm thinking. Dont' get me wrong, I use the shit out of it, but as a raid cooldown, it's rather lacking, to be generous. It seems to be much more of a personal cooldown, but then why does the tooltip seem to indicate it is supposed to be used as a group/raid cooldown?

  5. #5
    I'd love it, but the downside of making it a flat damage reduction would basically turn it into a voidy-looking PW:Barrier. Not that I'd mind, but I'm sure some would shout AMG CLASS HOMOGENISATION!1!1!!!
    Last edited by Soisoisoi; 2013-03-21 at 01:02 AM.

  6. #6
    AMZ needs to be okay all of the time instead of ridiculous some of the time and worthless most of the time.

  7. #7
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    I think the absorb limit should be removed and just make it a magic reduction for 5 seconds or something

  8. #8
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    The absorb limit is actually wrong in the case of a single spike damage. If nobody in the raid takes magical damage and then there is on and only burst of damage, then amz actually absorb 75% of this spike. At least it was the way in 4.3 and i never saw any tooltip wangling that so please correct me if i'm wrong.

    if used well (and if the mechanics work accordingly) it can be a very powerful cd

  9. #9
    If you read the tooltip it lasts 10sec OR up to 139,xxx damage. So for most fights when you'd want a CD, like Lightning Storm on Jin'Rokh, Rampage on Meg, Arcane whatever on Feng, last phase of Ambershaper and so on, it lasts for like 1 tic. It's up and then down in less than a second. Does it help, yeah absolutely. Does it make a noticeable difference? No, not really. Even if it was "Reduces magical damage taken by 10% for 10sec" that would def be a very useful raid CD without being OP in PvE or PvP.

    I mean, a glyphed AMS absorbs more damage than AMZ. I don't really understand its purpose. Right now it's basically a weaker version of AMS. Looking at the fact that it's a bubble/AOE effect, it appears to be meant to be used as a group CD. The damage that it mitigates is so incredibly low that it's not really a CD at all. If it's meant to be a purely personal CD, then make it akin to an AMS mini-bubble animation.
    Last edited by Shenanigasm; 2013-03-21 at 02:41 AM.

  10. #10
    It breaks on the hit that does 139,xxx damage, BUT it absorbs 75% of that hit. So if there is a raid-wide AoE for 1 million magic damage, amz would absorb 750k PER PERSON.
    Compared to dev aura, 20% magic damage, for 6 seconds, every 3 minutes.

  11. #11
    AMZ for tanks leaves us without lichborne or purgatory which are usually 1000% better choices for our survivability. Personally I would rather have a baseline devo aura than a specced AMZ.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mionelol View Post
    No, it wouldn't. It would absorb its cap, 140k, on each person, which admittedly is still better than 140k on total.
    Pretty sure it still absorbs 75% of an incoming ability before checking to see whether or not it has reached the breaking point.

    Raid-wide meteor strike is about to hit the raid for 400K fire damage per person.
    Everyone stacks up
    Just before the meteor hits, AMZ is popped.
    AMZ absorbs 75% of the damage - 300K per person, everyone takes 100K fire damage each.
    AMZ checks to see whether it has reached the damage cap, it has, it dissipates.

    ^^ That's an ideal, and very situational scenario that assumes there haven't been any other little DoTs or random bits of damage being absorbed before the raid-wide ability lands. Because the meteor strike that's described above hits everyone at the same time AMZ doesn't check the amount of damage taken per player before breaking - it simply absorbs 75% of the first hit (which is everyone) and then checks/breaks.

    EDIT - None of that makes any difference whatsoever, it's still a seriously poor ability which is far too situational. Should still be a localised magical damage reduction but, say 35% for 8 seconds without a limit
    Last edited by mmoc0cdb03e806; 2013-03-21 at 07:33 AM.

  13. #13
    Magera is a pretty prime example to see how it works. You can drop it on top of your raid, and people will take very minimal damage, and it will instantly dissipate.

  14. #14
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Deatheryn View Post
    Yep^ mine gets used often as well in raiding situation but thats not to say I wouldn't like it to be a flat percentage damage reduction rather than the 140k. It does have its uses however. I think it would be great at 30-40% reduction for 5-10 secs in PVE.
    That would just be an overpowered version of Devotion Aura...

  15. #15
    I am Murloc!
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    It for sure doesn't hit the 75% in a single absorb, I've used it on breaths that do hundreds of thousands of damage and while good, it typically only absorbs the max amount it says on the tool tip.

    Currently it's decent against some comps in PvP and it's good on a select amount of encounters that have huge predictable burst magic damage all at once. Phase one Iron Qon is a very good example of how good the ability can be under the right conditions. Conditions where it's awful (well not awful but not as good) is something like Jin'Rokh thunderstorm. In a 10 man raid for instance that would save roughly 500k damage if all 10 people were under it for the first tick, which really isn't that bad. Devotion aura has a lot bigger radius and reduces damage by 20% for 6 seconds, effectively (just using rough math, not account for other damage modifiers each class has) meaning that for it's CD it would reduce damage by 600k and be a bit more practical to use.

    Again it's good but with heavy aura damage or dot damage splashing around it's really not that great.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Deatheryn View Post
    I think it would be great at 30-40% reduction for 5-10 secs in PVE.
    A 40% damage reduction would literally be the most broken defensive cooldown in the entire game. Even 30% would be pretty fucking ridiculous for a class that cannot be, and is far more stackable than, a healer.


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  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tojara View Post
    It for sure doesn't hit the 75% in a single absorb, I've used it on breaths that do hundreds of thousands of damage and while good, it typically only absorbs the max amount it says on the tool tip.
    If you're talking about breaths on megaera then i'm pretty sure that is a DoT channel rather than a single big hit. (just going off the behaviour on my first kill last night)

    But yeah, I have thought that while the mechanic is amazing for certain situations, it's also useless for a lot more which is a real shame for our only real 'raid cooldown' that we can bring. (not counting l90 because they're even more situational and don't DR)

  18. #18
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    AMZ should scale with attack power IMO. It's just going to fall behind the other two choices for PvP, and most likely also for PvE at some point, seeing as damage taken will continue to increase.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Terahertz View Post
    AMZ should scale with attack power IMO. It's just going to fall behind the other two choices for PvP, and most likely also for PvE at some point, seeing as damage taken will continue to increase.
    I never understood why we lost that aspect of it. It was always considered a lacklustre raid CD to begin with... taking the scaling away seemed entirely pointless.

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mionelol View Post
    No,; This is a misunderstanding of the ability.

    Think of it as a shared AMS, no more no less. Just like your own AMS will never absorb more than its cap, AMZ won't, either. It's just laggy between the players, allowing all of them to absorb up to its cap if it happens at the same time.
    You could be right - will have to agree to disagree because I CBA looking for proof right now. As far as I'm aware it can stop way more than the damage cap per person, mitigating 75% of an initial hit, unlike AMS

    EDIT - a quick look around the forum does show this:

    http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-UH?p=14652070

    quote from EJ, admittedly this was back in cata but don't think it has changed since then:

    Anti-Magic Zone:
    AMZ is the best utility an Unholy DK brings to a raid, and is alone a good enough reason not spec Frost. When used correctly, this will be your raid's strongest defensive CD. Do not be fooled by the tooltip to think it will only absorb the stated amount of damage. In reality, it will first absorb 75% of the next magical attack, and only THEN, if the amount absorbed exceeded the stated amount, it will vanish. Therefore, it works best when soaking single high-dmg attacks, and fails miserably soaking multiple low-dmg attacks.


    Quote Originally Posted by Avatar Killer View Post
    AMZ absorbs 75% of incoming spell damage to all targets inside of it period. End of that

    Then it does a second check. Was that total damage adding all targets more than i can absorb. If answer is yes then bubble is gone. If no then the bubble stays.
    Again, it's almost a moot point - situations like this are so few and far between that it generally ends up being eaten away in a couple of ticks of a random magical ability. If you DO get situations like elementium bolt/flame scythe then it can be awesome, otherwise it's generally pretty poor.
    Last edited by mmoc0cdb03e806; 2013-03-21 at 01:44 PM.

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