Shield Barrier

[Sci]

quick yay or nay please, is this a useful ability in prot tanking for ToT?

[FloridaElement]

Great for magic damage, as shield block wont help you there.

[Deleted]

Ofc it is.

When facing magic damage, bleed damage, or otherwise unblockable damage, Shield Barrier is the superior choice.

One example should be red head on meg which applies dot on you.

[Deleted]

First thing that comes to mind is Snapping Bite that Tortos casts. Barrier is great there.

[Valech]

You serious?
The two core abilities of active mitigation of prot warriors are Shieldblock and Shieldbarrier. Everything, from maxing Hit/Expertise to the 4-piece-bonus of our T15 revolve around those two abilities. In short: Yes, hell YES it is a useful ability.
Use Shieldblock when Melee damage is high (tanking Malakk for example) and use Shieldbarrier when damage is not blockable (like magic damage from Megaera´s breath or unavoidable damage like Horridon´s Triple Puncture).

Because you won´t be able to have both up, you will have to decide which is more useful. If you are Hit/Expertise capped it will for example be possible to have a Shieldblock up between Horridon´s Triple puncture and ALSO have a nice 60-rage-Shieldbarrier for each Triple Puncture.

[Gliff]

First thing that comes to mind is Snapping Bite that Tortos casts. Barrier is great there.

Huh? That is blockable.

Atleast according to this: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/x...?s=3173&e=3534

[Deleted]

@Gliff - It does alot of damage. When I tank Tortos I'd rather use Shield Barrier for every single Snapping Bite because it is guarenteed that it will mitigate alot of damage from it, whereas with Shield Block you have a chance to mitigate it. Also with the high amounts of vengeance I'm fairly certain that you can avoid almost all of Snapping Bite's damage.

[Valech]

@Gliff - It does alot of damage. When I tank Tortos I'd rather use Shield Barrier for every single Snapping Bite because it is guarenteed that it will mitigate alot of damage from it, whereas with Shield Block you have a chance to mitigate it. Also with the high amounts of vengeance I'm fairly certain that you can avoid almost all of Snapping Bite's damage.

If you shieldblock you are certain to mitigate the damage because shieldblock gives you 100% blockchance. Mitigation does not mean avoid completly. It means lower it to a certain extent. If Shieldblock or Shieldbarrier is more viable for Snapping Bite is debateable. But Shieldblock doesn´t provide a chance. It simply lets you block all blockable damage for 6 seconds.
I also don´t understand how high levels of vengeance enables you do avoid damage. Please enlighten me.

[Deleted]

Saying 'avoid' was poor wording on my part, I meant completely negate the entire Snapping Bite with high vengeance + shield barrier. I have only tanked Tortos twice and our main protection warrior advised me to use Shield Barrier on every Snapping Bite. Reason behind it is you will always be able to cast Shield Barrier for every single Snapping Bite whereas with Shield Block you might have a slight cooldown on a Shield Block charge or not have 60 rage to cast a Shield Block. With Shield Barrier you don't need a 60 rage barrier to mitigate most of Snapping Bite's damage.

[Mammoth]

The snapping bite situation is an interesting one. I've heard a number of people who know what they're doing champion block. I have tried both, but I have found life a lot easier with barrier.

Essentially, I have druids with ticking HoTs on me that heal all the damage from the boss, except the snapping bite. I get a barrier up for bite, then I'm bullet proof.
I also get aggro from the bats sometimes when I help AoE them, the barrier means that snapping bite hasn't taken my health down to danger levels.

It does however mean I have to focus for the entire fight.

[Deleted]

Shield Barrier is great if used correctly, much like heroic strike... if you use it incorrectly you can gimp your survivability
Aim for Shield Block when in doubt, for whenever there is high magic damage (provided the auto swings from the boss aren't hitting ridiculously hard) use barrier

Talon Rake and Snapping Bite can both be blocked
For Heroic Tortos if you are tanking the boss, make sure you have Shield Block up as a priority, then dump the rest of your rage into barrier
Although having said that, your crystal shield should be able to take the full brunt of the attack without breaking

[Deleted]

That's very interesting. I always valued Shield Barrier over Shield Block for those big nukes, even if they are blockable like Snapping Bite. Would you be so kind and give me a short briefing on Shield Block and how it works now, especially why it is a better choice over Shield Barrier for Snapping Bite?

[Ampere]

That's very interesting. I always valued Shield Barrier over Shield Block for those big nukes, even if they are blockable like Snapping Bite. Would you be so kind and give me a short briefing on Shield Block and how it works now, especially why it is a better choice over Shield Barrier for Snapping Bite?

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=2565
"Raise your shield, blocking every melee attack against you for 6 sec. These blocks can be critical blocks."

A Prot Warrior block will reduce the damage of an attack by 30% if it is blockable, your mastery gives you crit block chance and if you get a crit block it is a 60% damage reduction. Lets say you have a 50% crit block chance and you throw up shield block for a snapping bite.

Lets say snapping bite will hit you for 500k with no abilities used.
Shield block, no crit block half the time = 500k*0.70 = 350k damage taken
Shield block, crit block half the time = 500k*0.40 = 200k damage taken

Shield barrier numbers would vary based on vengeance. I'm not really arguing which is better for this scenario, just pointing out how shield block works

edit:
There's also a chance that you could use shield barrier and still get a block or critical block, but that is not something you could rely on.

[Sci]

Thanks everyone!

[rinleezwins]

Vengeance boosts shield barrier, but does not affect shield block. If you have lots of vengeance and you can mitigate something with block, it might be worth it to use shield barrier instead. It will mitigate more, but ofc you are losing a potential critical block.

[Damosapien]

barrier is great, when i end up tanking, i use it either for unblockable attacks (eg bladelord hc's 'something' assault)or to fill in the gap when block is on a long cd, so i never apart from the first 3 seconds of a fight, and when i feel greedy,(i am main spec dps after all) when the boss is under 20%, take an unmitigated hit.

[Deleted]

The problem is that normally you have huge vengeance after the big attack, not before. It is very rare that an attack that can be blocked it is worth it to spend a Sbar on it, considering Sblock will mitigate the special and the melee after and before that. Don't think tortos snapping bite is a good thing to Sbar. The stomp would be better if you have the rage to spare.

It would be better on things like ji-kun rake when a taunt is coming after it. Mayhaps Primordius Primal Strike when you have a shit load of Malformed on you too. You would prevent more damage, but the Sbar will go out fast and you will have both the dot and melees to the face to care about. If you have a CD on you Sbar is better almost always. If you are going to die, Sbar is better.

At the end, you have to decide on the moment.

[Deleted]

It's not like there's only one snapping bite the entire fight... but i don't see a real problem in that discussion, if you're at low vengeance shield block should always come out ahead... if you're at high vengenace it depends on if the attack is blockable or not. The argument considering shield blocks cooldown is negible, you can just pop one barrier and your block will be ready for the next burst again.

For example take Durumu, you could barrier his hard stare but 10 seconds later he'll do it again and in between he'll really give you some hard hits. So it depends on your healer team, do you need to counter spikes or just prefer less overall damage intake? And don't forget the damage component within shield block, with shield slam already being our top damage source +50% on top of that won't hurt.

Benefits of barrier: works on magical damage and if you avoid the boss auto attacks (which isn't to unluckly with 40% avoidance raidbuffed) block won't do something for you while barrier still works on all the other stuff flying around and damaging your whole raid. And you won't need 60 rage which clearly helps with bursts in <10 seconds timespan when it's far more likely to not get 60 rage.