What are your thoughts on Soul Barrier?

[Puupi]

My thoughts:

Absorbs too little, on global cooldown, buff duration too short. So it's a no-go for now.

[shade3891]

I like the fact that the absorb effect stays at a minimum of 70k, its awesome at the start of a pull when tanking packs (without cc)!
Not planning to die anytime soon so [Last Resort] is a wasted talent imo! It might be useful in raids, same with Nether Bond. But i'm not a mythic raider and do as i like ^^

Also my post 800th post, yeee

[Lucrece]

Or they're doing dungeons more efficiently than you.

About as pointless as saying you run a feral druid in 5 mans or a shadow priest. If efficiency was key, we'd be running nothing but a fire mage+WW monk+ havoc DH comp without even a DH tank since there are better tanks anyways (DH isn't bad, but there are better tanks). We know that's not the case for the vast majority of groups.

What matters in the end to most people is that the content is cleared. The little time races are just the product of people growing bored and finding outlets that keep the content relevant to them.

It's quite simple. If people are failing the content, they'll evaluate their options and judge whether a switch in talents will make a difference for them. Otherwise they're quite happy to pick talents which suit their playstyle preferences (and yes, fantasy in an RPG).

[Raiju]

That's nice and all, but this thread is arguing about whether it even competes with last resort, which the answer is no.

Noone is saying you can't run inferior talents - we're just saying to accept that they are actually inferior and in a substantial way that can be noticed in ANY run.

[Zavala_451]

Doesn't soul barrier just create more problems with spiky incoming damage and create problems for healers?

Healers will see moments of hardly any damage taken vs a ton of it and back and forth etc. Isn't this talent poorly designed in terms of mitigation?

I actually think it would be better it block a % of damage instead, although then I understand it becomes pretty "samey" with other tanks and underwhelming final talent

[unfilteredJW]

Not even close to a choice here.

Last Resort > Soul Barrier

But enjoy whatever gymnastics you need to disagree. You didn't come here to discuss; you wanted validation.

[Deleted]

Last Resort simply feels utterly dull and doesn't suit my playstyle, I'll stick to Soul Barrier thanks. For my uses it is the better talent.

[seam]

Also my post 800th post, yeee

6400 to go!

I personally like LS, in pugs with less than great healers it's a nice saftey net, in groups with guild healers it's a nice dps CD.

[Puupi]

Doesn't soul barrier just create more problems with spiky incoming damage and create problems for healers?

Healers will see moments of hardly any damage taken vs a ton of it and back and forth etc. Isn't this talent poorly designed in terms of mitigation?

Any healer (or any player for that matter), who doesn't know the exact size of an absorb shield on a target, is a failure. If your healing or tanking UI doesn't show absorbs, you need to change that UI.

[demoncraft]

Seriously not sure how Last Resort users are so sure of their choice in every siutation. It has its uses for sure but it is NOT all purpose. I see arguments about DPS increase which is laughable, and soul barrier being a dps decrease which is really only half true. People also talk insanely vaguely which is not productive for either side. People are talking about how fast they can clear regular mythic dungeons. We are close enough to raids now that nobody should be talking about clearing mythics with a full 850 group. It's trivial content, get over it. You don't see any multi page threads here debating what talent to take in normal mode so why mythic. The majority of people are massively over geared for it. So I'm talking exclusively about raids here. Mythic+ is hard to talk about given the affixes for the week change what tanks are best and what talents you want to run entirely. In RAIDS your 7 pain a second dps increase is worthless and you WILL NOT be gaming this talent in a progression environment in order to "clear faster". Any time you will want to bring Last Resort in a raid will be a SPECIFIC fights where the boss is going to have infrequent periods of heavy damage and Last Resort gives you another cooldown to make it through those phases. If a fight is very high damage for the entire duration Last Resort will be completely useless, 15 seconds where you can reset yourself to full wont stop your health from going down right after. In terms of Soul Barriers pain cost, it is not even relevant AT ALL. It's 30 pain every 20 seconds or 1.5 pain per second. Secondly and most importantly SOUL CLEAVE DOESN'T DEAL MORE DAMAGE THE MORE PAIN YOU SPEND ON IT(I'm wrong). People act like all the pain they spend on Soul Barrier would be going to DPS otherwise. Unless you are casting soul cleave at exactly 30 pain EVERY single time and NEVER cast it at full hp then you are WASTING PAIN. For me right now as 850 ilvl soul cleave heals me for 330k at 60 pain. If I am indeed at 60 pain I can cast Soul Barrier > Soul Cleave which shields me for 450k, heals me for 115k AND deals the same 200k as if I spent 60 pain on soul cleave. This happens every 20 seconds and can and should be used on cooldown. That's 9 uses per cd of Last Resort IF you were using Last Resort on CD which in a progression raid environment you will not be. Nobody is going to let their Last Resort proc on pull and then every 3 minutes after. So even without orbs Soul Barrier is going to mitigate over 4 million damage between ever proc of Last Resort. With orbs this number goes up significantly but it's hard to estimate.

[Henriksson]

Secondly and most importantly SOUL CLEAVE DOESN'T DEAL MORE DAMAGE THE MORE PAIN YOU SPEND ON IT. People act like all the pain they spend on Soul Barrier would be going to DPS otherwise. Unless you are casting soul cleave at exactly 30 pain EVERY single time and NEVER cast it at full hp then you are WASTING PAIN. For me right now as 850 ilvl soul cleave heals me for 330k at 60 pain. If I am indeed at 60 pain I can cast Soul Barrier > Soul Cleave which shields me for 450k, heals me for 115k AND deals the same 200k as if I spent 60 pain on soul cleave.

TFW you argue so hard for something but the ground you stand on doesn't exist so you fall through the void and die.

[Deleted]

Seriously not sure how Last Resort users are so sure of their choice in every siutation. It has its uses for sure but it is NOT all purpose. I see arguments about DPS increase which is laughable, and soul barrier being a dps decrease which is really only half true. People also talk insanely vaguely which is not productive for either side. People are talking about how fast they can clear regular mythic dungeons. We are close enough to raids now that nobody should be talking about clearing mythics with a full 850 group. It's trivial content, get over it. You don't see any multi page threads here debating what talent to take in normal mode so why mythic. The majority of people are massively over geared for it. So I'm talking exclusively about raids here. Mythic+ is hard to talk about given the affixes for the week change what tanks are best and what talents you want to run entirely. In RAIDS your 7 pain a second dps increase is worthless and you WILL NOT be gaming this talent in a progression environment in order to "clear faster". Any time you will want to bring Last Resort in a raid will be a SPECIFIC fights where the boss is going to have infrequent periods of heavy damage and Last Resort gives you another cooldown to make it through those phases. If a fight is very high damage for the entire duration Last Resort will be completely useless, 15 seconds where you can reset yourself to full wont stop your health from going down right after. In terms of Soul Barriers pain cost, it is not even relevant AT ALL. It's 30 pain every 20 seconds or 1.5 pain per second. Secondly and most importantly SOUL CLEAVE DOESN'T DEAL MORE DAMAGE THE MORE PAIN YOU SPEND ON IT. People act like all the pain they spend on Soul Barrier would be going to DPS otherwise. Unless you are casting soul cleave at exactly 30 pain EVERY single time and NEVER cast it at full hp then you are WASTING PAIN. For me right now as 850 ilvl soul cleave heals me for 330k at 60 pain. If I am indeed at 60 pain I can cast Soul Barrier > Soul Cleave which shields me for 450k, heals me for 115k AND deals the same 200k as if I spent 60 pain on soul cleave. This happens every 20 seconds and can and should be used on cooldown. That's 9 uses per cd of Last Resort IF you were using Last Resort on CD which in a progression raid environment you will not be. Nobody is going to let their Last Resort proc on pull and then every 3 minutes after. So even without orbs Soul Barrier is going to mitigate over 4 million damage between ever proc of Last Resort. With orbs this number goes up significantly but it's hard to estimate.

This abomination of a post will haunt my dreams. Thanks.
EDIT: Last Resort is a 100 % must have talent for anything except extreme gimmick content.

[demoncraft]

TFW you argue so hard for something but the ground you stand on doesn't exist so you fall through the void and die.

My bad, you're right, it doesn't discount my point though. The DPS is not something you should be even remotely concerned with. Once every 20 seconds you spend 30 pain on something else. That's less than a 5k dps decrease even if you spend all your pain on soul cleave but I'm sure some of it will be going to demon spikes. Soul barrier is the only way to get the most out of your soul fragments and not waste healing. With last resort and soul rending you will be over healing massively for 15 seconds then taking massive damage for the rest of the fight. Every time you soul cleave for DPS and you are close to full health you are wasting pain. If you aren't changing talents fight to fight on progression you are going to fail. These talents both have their uses but people who are using last resort seem to be using it exclusively which is wrong. If you go into Nythendra with Last Resort you are wasting a talent. She doesn't have a phase where she deals ridiculous damage for an extended period. She has fairly consistent damage for most of the fight and has a couple abilities that will do short quick bursts of damage that soul barrier will block most of entirely.

[MackMaynee]

That is literally the single stupidest thing I've ever seen posted on this site. Congrats.

stupidest

hrm.

@OP I would definitely stick with LR as a quality of life thing, lets me play a lot more comfortably with my defensive cooldowns knowing I have an oh shit mechanic. Soul Barrier shows potential, but a cheat death that also increases my leech by 50%? Yum.

- - - Updated - - -

As I wait for my hearthstone to come off of CD, allow me to explain why Soul Barrier is horrible.

For starters, it's not really horrible. It's just not viable. Why? Because in any RELEVANT content (ie: Heroic Raids [lol], Mythic Raids, and Mythic+) where dying is completely and entirely feasible, having a cheat death mechanic that instantly allows a DH tank to pick themselves up is invaluable. There is no other realistic option in progression raiding or Mythic+ dungeons for the simple fact that being able to cheat a death and recover will absolutely without a doubt always outweigh increased self mitigation, or equalizing of percentages (due to the fact that the latter directly impacts another person and causes a larger issue than it solves in regards to healing)

This means that when you're doing farm content (ie: Heroic dungeons, questing, world bosses etc etc) that of course, Soul Barrier on paper would be the BEST choice. Why? Because even in Heroics, with NO healer, I am able to never proc my Last Resort unless I get greedy with my pulls, and Nether Bond is just not a very good choice outside of a raiding environment (in which case I still don't think it's better than L.R). However, the reason that I will never use Soul Barrier is quite simple. If you being crutching on an ability in casual play, and get used to it in your rotation, it will become a hindrance to your play during content. This is the time that we as tanks should all be beginning to become accustom to maximizing stabilization and self-HPS monitoring for the Mythic+ and raiding content --- practicing with an ability you won't be using doesn't help you any.

Soul Barrier isn't bad as an ability, in fact, it may be a phenomenal ability --- but it does not beat out an ability that allows you to cheat death by giving you a practical Lay on Hands + 6s Last Stand simultaneously. The fact remains that even if it doesn't directly effect your play if it never procs, the safety it gives your group allows your healer to make different decisions, and sometimes can change the outcome of a fight. IE: A healer can have the confidence to NOT heal the tank, and instead heal a dying DPS knowing that even if the tank dies, they will proc instead of flat out die. Those minimalistic changes in play can alter a fights outcome entirely, and anyone who would argue that has little to no experience in a top tier raiding environment.

If you're casual? Who cares, play whatever you want and have fun <

But if you want to be competitive? Last Resort is really the ONLY option.

[Aisaaax]

My thoughts:

Absorbs too little, on global cooldown, buff duration too short. So it's a no-go for now.

lol, 1 million absorb (avg) on solo target WITHOUT souls fragments per activation once every 20 sec? Is it too little? More if you consume SF?
And if you are tanking multiple enemies, you easily see 1.5-2-3 mil, depending on pack size. PER ACTIVATION. I mean... lol.
Perhaps you forget that SB absorbs 450k + ~75k per SF absorbed + ~60k fron EVERY attack after the main shield depletes. If the mob is swinging on average once 0.75 sec, then you get a shitload of absorb per activation.

And for those who say it makes Soul Cleave less potent because it consumes SF - you clearly didn't test it. When SB consumes SF if heals you the same amount as Cleave per fragment PLUS it grants you equal amount of absorb. It's double benefit.

IMO this is the best talent in a tier. Last Resort will heal you 30% once per 3 min, which is about a million hp. And the fact that it goes off means something is wrong with you or your healers already.
During these 3 min SB will easily grant you absorb of about 7-9 million on solo target.

Yea, read guides more. Then definitely this talent is not viable.

[ro9ue]

For starters, it's not really horrible. It's just not viable. Why? Because in any RELEVANT content (ie: Heroic Raids [lol], Mythic Raids, and Mythic+) where dying is completely and entirely feasible, having a cheat death mechanic that instantly allows a DH tank to pick themselves up is invaluable. There is no other realistic option in progression raiding or Mythic+ dungeons for the simple fact that being able to cheat a death and recover will absolutely without a doubt always outweigh increased self mitigation, or equalizing of percentages (due to the fact that the latter directly impacts another person and causes a larger issue than it solves in regards to healing)

This means that when you're doing farm content (ie: Heroic dungeons, questing, world bosses etc etc) that of course, Soul Barrier on paper would be the BEST choice. Why? Because even in Heroics, with NO healer, I am able to never proc my Last Resort unless I get greedy with my pulls, and Nether Bond is just not a very good choice outside of a raiding environment (in which case I still don't think it's better than L.R). However, the reason that I will never use Soul Barrier is quite simple. If you being crutching on an ability in casual play, and get used to it in your rotation, it will become a hindrance to your play during content. This is the time that we as tanks should all be beginning to become accustom to maximizing stabilization and self-HPS monitoring for the Mythic+ and raiding content --- practicing with an ability you won't be using doesn't help you any.

Soul Barrier isn't bad as an ability, in fact, it may be a phenomenal ability --- but it does not beat out an ability that allows you to cheat death by giving you a practical Lay on Hands + 6s Last Stand simultaneously. The fact remains that even if it doesn't directly effect your play if it never procs, the safety it gives your group allows your healer to make different decisions, and sometimes can change the outcome of a fight. IE: A healer can have the confidence to NOT heal the tank, and instead heal a dying DPS knowing that even if the tank dies, they will proc instead of flat out die. Those minimalistic changes in play can alter a fights outcome entirely, and anyone who would argue that has little to no experience in a top tier raiding environment.

If you're casual? Who cares, play whatever you want and have fun <

But if you want to be competitive? Last Resort is really the ONLY option.

I agree with your post entirely. That's pretty much the same conclusion I came to. For picking Last Resort vs Soul Barrier, ask yourself: is there a reasonable chance of death in the content you're doing? If so, Last Resort is the best choice. If you're doing basic Mythic Dungeons, World Quests/Bosses, Heroics, etc... Last Resort is essentially useless. You won't ever die, and pooling frags for 1m+ absorb shields makes the run much smoother. You know no matter what there will be group damage, but if you essentially can make yourself unkillable - you give your healer one less bar to worry about.

Not to mention I've had cases where my entire group died and I was stuck soloing a boss or two in regular Mythic Dungeons, and while Last Resort might work once every three minutes, Soul Barrier is always around every 20 seconds to give you an option to choose DPS vs mitigation. And for tanks, the goal is not to die in the first place.

I think the verdict for me: Soul Barrier until you start seeing yourself die regularly (high level Mythic+ Keystones/progression raiding). Then use Last Resort. "Dying regularly" is arbitrary and will just be something you'll have to feel out. When I created this thread, only base mythic dungeons and heroics were available. Soul Barrier was the clear choice because I died only a few times total since the expansion came out. Last Resort was completely useless.

Also I think you have to feel out if you can play Soul Barrier properly, does that damage absorb over the course of the fight outweigh an oh-shit safety net? Sometimes, if you're successfully getting 1m+ absorbs, over the course of the fight - possibly it could be better. I think that's just further proof Blizzard has done a good job with talents this tier. You really have to just figure out what's right for your playstyle and the group you're playing with.

[Azszora]

7.1 PTR

Soul Barrier Shield yourself for 8 12 sec, absorbing [ 1,500% of AP * Percent Health + 15% of AP * AP * Percent Health ] damage. Consuming a Soul Fragment adds [ 250% of AP * Percent Health ] to the shield. Soul Barrier's absorption cannot be reduced below [ 200% of AP * Percent Health ]. Consumes all Soul Fragments within 25 yds. Vengeance Demon Hunter - Level 110 Talent. 300 Pain. Instant. 20 sec cooldown.