Spellblade - Searing Brand

[ThePants999]

Help me out here folks. My understanding of the Searing Brand mechanic on Spellblade is this:
- She marks you with the debuff that says you're about to get Searing Brand, creating the visible line.
- She charges. Anyone who's in the way gets Blazing Charge - a big knockback and about 1.6M damage (on Mythic).
- She hits you. You get Searing Brand - a small knockback, a bunch of up-front damage and a DoT.

Unless there's a bug, I seem to have misunderstood something, as multiple times tonight, someone in the raid would get both the Charge and the Brand damage, even though they weren't standing in anyone else's line. Here's an example when it happened to me:

Damage log - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...ght=28&death=4
Replay - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...28&view=replay

You can see that at 1:47, I get charged to, getting knocked back a bit and taking 1.4M damage. Fine. But then 1.5 seconds later, I get a big knockback and 1.6M Blazing Charge damage. As you can see from the replay, I can't possibly be in anyone else's line, I'm right at the back from the boss' perspective. Same thing happens to Krakken, he's at the back but gets a Blazing Charge hit some time AFTER the initial Searing Brand application.

Can anyone explain?

[ThePants999]

I guess it's a bug then! Has anyone else at least experienced it?

[Bobthegoat]

Help me out here folks. My understanding of the Searing Brand mechanic on Spellblade is this:
- She marks you with the debuff that says you're about to get Searing Brand, creating the visible line.
- She charges. Anyone who's in the way gets Blazing Charge - a big knockback and about 1.6M damage (on Mythic).
- She hits you. You get Searing Brand - a small knockback, a bunch of up-front damage and a DoT.

Unless there's a bug, I seem to have misunderstood something, as multiple times tonight, someone in the raid would get both the Charge and the Brand damage, even though they weren't standing in anyone else's line. Here's an example when it happened to me:

Damage log - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...ght=28&death=4
Replay - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...28&view=replay

You can see that at 1:47, I get charged to, getting knocked back a bit and taking 1.4M damage. Fine. But then 1.5 seconds later, I get a big knockback and 1.6M Blazing Charge damage. As you can see from the replay, I can't possibly be in anyone else's line, I'm right at the back from the boss' perspective. Same thing happens to Krakken, he's at the back but gets a Blazing Charge hit some time AFTER the initial Searing Brand application.

Can anyone explain?

The boss charges anyone with searing brand.

1st searing brand gets applied and the boss charges that person.

Then 5 more searing brands get applied and all 6 people with the debuff get charges.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...66&end=7211518

As you can see there by ticking on and off names, there is no funny business going on with the amount of debuffs applied. There is 6 total which is correct.

Do you believe that someone without the searing brand is getting hit by charge? That would be a problem.

[Cheze]

I thought that the way it works was that branding the target (or replicating) creates the line, and then she charges shortly thereafter. Neither of you seem to take an out of the ordinary amount of damage from either so I'm not sure what the issue is (getting mark of frost and then fel stomped right after sucks though, r i p)

[Bobthegoat]

And to comment on your last paragraph, we can't look at anything unless you tell us which characters were supposed to be looking at :P

[ThePants999]

Click the link to see the character in question - Luchelle.

I completely understand that the boss charges everyone with Searing Brand, and I totally agree that the right number of people got Searing Brand. That's not the issue. The issue is that the charge damage is not supposed to happen to the people she charges TO, only the people she charges THROUGH. If you execute the mechanic perfectly, nobody should take Blazing Charge damage at all.

Compare https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...ability=213166 and https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...ability=233098. See how Demonsong takes Searing Brand damage, but no Blazing Charge damage. And watch in the replay - you'll see that the boss charges to him through Huntwulf. Huntwulf takes a Blazing Charge hit and a big knockback. Demonsong only takes the Searing Brand hit and a small knockback. My understanding is that this is what's supposed to happen.

In my case, I get targeted, I get charged to and I get Searing Brand damage and a small knockback - that's entirely correct and expected. However, 1.5 seconds later, I ALSO take the Blazing Charge damage and a bigger knockback. This should only happen if she hits me on the way to someone else. She isn't.

If I'm wrong about the person she charges to not taking charge damage, I'd expect to take the charge damage before the Searing Brand damage, or at least at the same time - not 1.5 seconds later. But if I'm wrong, why didn't Demonsong take the charge damage?

[Froozh]

You can avoid the second charge by simply running to the side

[Bobthegoat]

Everyone in my raid group always gets hit with 1.5mil - 2.0mil of blazing charge damage whenever they are marked for being charged. So at least 6 people will get 1.5 mil damage.

As for the double knockback. If you walk forward while the boss is charging you, you will get knocked back twice. It happens to us often but i've never seen anyone die from it.

If someone isn't taking the blazing charge damage when they are being charged at, then they either used an immunity or somehow managed to escape it.

[ThePants999]

Thanks both!