Nether Protection and you......

[Licarius]

ok. so while looking at specs for 4.06 i found this: http://ptr.wowhead.com/talent#I0hZf0bZIbbfRbsRdo

which besides the stamina in the demo tree looks fine, however....

2 points in Nether Protection rather than 2 points in Backlash......


i find backlash procs fairly often, no i don't intentionally get hit either -.-, but an instant incinerate over a damage absorb is surely a dps increase??????

can anyone convince me to get this talent?

it also says shadow ward, nether ward AND OTHER EFFECTS..... what are these "other effects" which can proc Nether Protection? should i be casting nether ward on cd to take advantage of nether protection.......?

any help is greatly appreciated.....

[Maes]

Backlash says 8% chance when hit by a physical attack. Unless something is cleaving you or you have aggro it shouldn't proc in most situations, nether protection on the other hand absorbs a decent amount of magic damage and makes u take 30% less from that school for a few seconds, most aoes are magic and reducing that is a huge help to healers. on my lock i generally am one of the lowest on damage taken mostly due to this talent while still being top (or near top) dps on almost every fight.

[tyden49]

Backlash should be totally useless for a pure raiding lock. If you are getting hit then you are doing it wrong. I personally chose aftermath over nether protection, for a bit of utility in 5 mans and for kiting also the RoF stun might be useful if RNG is your friend. However it is up to you i always use netherward when i know i am going to take spell damage, but i find with the lack of quality major glyphs for destro the soul link glyph and the extra 5% dmg reduction on top of the 20% less that you are already taking is plenty.

However my guild is not doing Hardmodes yet and healers arent having many problems atm this might change in heroics.

[Mortanix]

I cannot overstate just how good netherward is, it's not just the ability to absorb a chunk of any damage spell but that resistance after that makes it killer, the list of fights where it's useful is huge, a dead dps does no damage thats where the dps increase is.

[andromalia]

Backlash says 8% chance when hit by a physical attack. Unless something is cleaving you or you have aggro it shouldn't proc in most situations, nether protection on the other hand absorbs a decent amount of magic damage and makes u take 30% less from that school for a few seconds, most aoes are magic and reducing that is a huge help to healers. on my lock i generally am one of the lowest on damage taken mostly due to this talent while still being top (or near top) dps on almost every fight.

You're forgetting a very important component. Add your pet's soul link damage to your damage and you'll see what you *really* took. Most locks are going to be lower on damage taken than anyone else simply because 20% incoming damage (or more) is going somewhere else.

[Elmi]

Out of the three alternatives this is the best talent for hard mode progress.
It's quite simple: You take less damage, you suck less heals, heals can go elsewhere, raid lives longer.
Really shines in situations of consecutive high damage like Chimaeron's Caustic Slime during Feud, Nezir's Sleet Storm or the Lava during Nefarians transition just to name a few.

[Velocet]

nether protection = op talent tbh. especially when you don't need to fill gcds with life tapping. i cant really think of an encounter where backlash has a good chance to proc and therefore useless.

anyway, most heroic encounters are heavy in raid spell damage. always nice to be able to mitigate.