Intercept Discussion / Concerns - Prot War

[Deleted]

TLDR: Is the rage generated from Intercept over an entire encounter enough for me to worry about trying to intercept melee people in combat while main tanking a boss?



So I've spent a long time trying to find information out there about this and even the 7.0 prot warr sticky on these forums only brings it up in the comments.

Intercept.
Generates 20 rage.

Icy Veins considers it part of the rotation.

It generates MORE rage than Shield Slam.
It generates MORE rage than Revenge.

It has a minimum rage for enemies but not for allies.

It is off the global cooldown.

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Sitting here thinking about using intercept on an ally every 15 seconds during encounters WHILE tanking just seems like a janky mess.

Fine if I have my Offtank standing right next to me and I have a macro targeting him.

But what if my Offtank is across the other side of the raid? I have to intercept a melee? Spinning the boss around, possibly re-positioning him or cleaving melee/breathing fire over the raid?


Are the numbers so small across a fight that I can ignore this mechanic completely?
Because god damn this sounds horrible in practice.

[threeks]

Never do it if it will screw up positioning/cleave a raid/etc it's good, but it's not so good that you want to wipe your group for it ...

[Deleted]

At least Double Time gives you two charges so you have some flex with regards to when you use it. Can't say I enjoy the mechanic though.

[Shieldarm]

Alright, so it has a 15 second recharge, right? You get 2 charges to begin with, and we'll say you do it all the time, maintaining it.

For a 450 second fight (7 and a half minutes), that's 30 uses of Intercept (+1 for bonus charge at the beginning). 31 x 20 = 620. We'll say you pushed your Shield Block down to 10.5 seconds (not too bad). That's ~43 uses of Shield Block through the course of the fight. 430 rage for that. We're leftover with 190 rage. That's slightly over 4 full FR/IP combos with Vengeance. And it's after accounting for every use of Shield Block. By using Intercept on a regular basis, you eliminated the need to worry about rage for Shield Block and gained 4 full IPs (~800k-1M IP)

Now, your question had a second point, and that's a spinning boss. This can be very bad. Say you use Intercept on a Zakuun-esque fight, and the boss spins. Suddenly, someone is cleaved and dies. In this scenario, the only potentially safe intercept is a co-tank, or someone who is ready and capable to survive it. But, cotank is safer. On cleave fights, you have to be a bit more mindful.

On every other fight, it's actually REALLY easy. Keep in mind where Intercept places you. It doesn't put you inside your ally, or on the opposite side. It just puts you close to them. If you have your co-tank or a melee that is standing near the center-point of the boss, you can intercept them, and the boss MIGHT turn a couple degrees, but not enough to cause significant danger. Obviously, that melee becomes a bit more exposed to a PBAoE though, because he's got to get further away.

So, what I do in my group, if my co-tank can't be there (such as Council), there's a DK in my group, who stays close to the boss' center. We then use our boss knowledge to know when he won't be around for me to intercept. Luckily, I have a whole 15 second window before I start losing time on Intercept, so we're usually back in our standard positions before it even becomes a concern.

The amount of rage generated from Intercept is very significant, and very worth using. You just need to take a bit of coordination sometimes to do so.

I use a macro, to leave Intercept on one button. If just pressed, it does so on my target. If I hold alt, it'll first try on an ally mouseover, and if not, then to my focus target.

[Deleted]

Shieldarm That's what I was afraid of.

I don't like the idea at all of relying on -someone else- in my raid having good enough positioning for me to squeeze more out of myself as a tank. Im having terrible visions of intercepting my "trusted melee" person and him not being in the position I imagined he would be in, or he suddenly had to move.

Not only that... there isn't any smooth way of me doing it (that I can see) without using multiple macros or one with modifiers.

Macro for OT
Macro for a named melee that is helping me out with this
Macro for mouseover person / raid unit frames
Macro for focus target

I just hate the idea of it as a mechanic + just wished I could charge my enemy target from minimum range.


I also find it strange it's hard to find good discussion on this. Are 99% of prot wars cool with this being a thing? Or are most just flat out ignoring it?

[Shieldarm]

I am fine with it. It can be a little wonky at times, when people are running around, but 90% of the time, it's not even a bother. Especially since it's off the global. As for your macros...

#showtooltip
/cast [nomod] Intercept; [mod @mouseover,help] [mod @Focus] [mod] Intercept

That's all I use. Pretty straightforward. I usually have my co-tank or my melee set as my focus, depending on the fight. If it's a fight where there's periods of my co-tank not being able to be next to me, I set it to my melee. I then just mouseover the big bear butt standing next to me when he's available.

[Deleted]

With most rage coming from damage taken I like having a controllable boost to my rage pool. Should it be intercept? Probably not. Personally I'd rather see this coming from an ability like berserker rage.

[Bethrezen]

@mouseover macro intercept. Intercept ez. Hardly ever move/change from rotation on boss/encounter.

- - - Updated - - -

I am fine with it. It can be a little wonky at times, when people are running around, but 90% of the time, it's not even a bother. Especially since it's off the global. As for your macros...

#showtooltip
/cast [nomod] Intercept; [mod @mouseover,help] [mod @Focus] [mod] Intercept

That's all I use. Pretty straightforward. I usually have my co-tank or my melee set as my focus, depending on the fight. If it's a fight where there's periods of my co-tank not being able to be next to me, I set it to my melee. I then just mouseover the big bear butt standing next to me when he's available.

Yeah, this. +1

[vanquishedValiant]

I just hate the idea of it as a mechanic + just wished I could charge my enemy target from minimum range.

I also find it strange it's hard to find good discussion on this. Are 99% of prot wars cool with this being a thing? Or are most just flat out ignoring it?

I feel like after a while, when it sinks in to Blizzard that this is the standard of doing things, I imagine they will either drop the minimum range as a quality of life improvement, or restrict the way the allied charge works.

I'm fine with it as is now because it feels like a fair trade for losing the other power once tied up in Intervene, and also for being able to gain dps and crowd control through Warbringer.

Though I keep having this bug where I use Intercept on an enemy target, Warbringer correctly fires off at the enemies feet, but Intercept actually moves me to a seemingly random ally in my party instead. Awkward for pulls.

[Shieldarm]

I feel like after a while, when it sinks in to Blizzard that this is the standard of doing things, I imagine they will either drop the minimum range as a quality of life improvement, or restrict the way the allied charge works.

I'm fine with it as is now because it feels like a fair trade for losing the other power once tied up in Intervene, and also for being able to gain dps and crowd control through Warbringer.

Though I keep having this bug where I use Intercept on an enemy target, Warbringer correctly fires off at the enemies feet, but Intercept actually moves me to a seemingly random ally in my party instead. Awkward for pulls.

My only issue with Warbringer, is every time I use it, the range seems HUGE. Like, I'm able to pull bosses from 30 yards away with it, by charging an ally. And, it doesn't appear to do damage if it doesn't stun, so the damage utility of it is lost on bosses.

[Deleted]

When i saw this change on the Alpha Realm i really didnt like it. Now that i had a chance to play with it i kind of like it. With a mouseover macro its not a big deal and thanks to the 2 charges you have a 40s window to use it. In the end this will be one of the parts that makes the difference between a good and bad warrior.

The only part i really didnt like was the double intercept pre pull ritual we had to do, but that got fixed.

Personally I'd rather see this coming from an ability like berserker rage.

PLS never again. My muscle memory screwed me over in pvp or dungeons so often, because i was used to just press berserker rage and not keep it as a cc breaker.

[Deleted]

PLS never again. My muscle memory screwed me over in pvp or dungeons so often, because i was used to just press berserker rage and not keep it as a cc breaker.

God forbid we have to think about when we use abilities. Also, why play a tank in PvP?