Does soul barrier count as active mitigation?

[Thoughtful Trolli]

Wow, there is SO much misinformation here.

In Legion, each tank has a designated ability that counts as "Active Mitigation" against bosses that have a Mitigation Check mechanic. If you fail to use Active Mitigation against a Boss's Mitigation Check, you receive an additional negative side effect. Examples of Mitigation Checks:

* 2nd Boss in BRH has "Vengeful Shear" and if she lands it on you and you don't actively mitigate it, you take 100% extra damage as a debuff.
* Last Boss in Nelth Lair, "Molten Crash" if you fail to actively mitigate it, you fly far, far away when he hits you.
* God King Skovald in HoV, "Savage Blade" if you fail to actively mitigate it, you take a bleed over time
* First Boss in Vault of the Wardens, "Dark Strikes", if you fail to mitigate it, the boss gets a damage absorb shield

For Demon Hunters, the designated Active Mitigation ability is "Demon Spikes". To my knowledge, every tank has only ONE ability that counts as "Active Mitigation" against Mitigation Checks. Yes, there are other "active abilities" that "mitigate" but they are not considered "Active Mitigation" for Mitigation Checks. I.E. Warrior's Active Mitigation is "Shield Block", while Ignore Pain does NOT count for Mitigation Checks. Similarly, Demon Hunter's "Fiery Brand" does not count for Mitigation Checks.

To answer OP's question, no, Soul Barrier does not count as Active Mitigation.

Thank you Sir! I was actually completely concerned about all this as well, and clearly many posters before you said misgivings. I know Last Stand doesn't count as active mitigation.

Perhaps they could add a massively boosted red-color tooltip on every ability that has Active Mitigation to make things easier; There's honestly no way to tell otherwise, save outside game research and people as helpful as yourself.

[Tech614]

Dear lord are some people obnoxious in this forum.

I lol'd at this thread good.

Pretty obvious dude was asking if the ability countered mitigation checks on bosses which it doesn't, only DS does. People getting in arguments are technical definitions, lmao.

- - - Updated - - -

Perhaps they could add a massively boosted red-color tooltip on every ability that has Active Mitigation to make things easier; There's honestly no way to tell otherwise, save outside game research and people as helpful as yourself.

If you read the dungeon journal in the tank spec you're playing it tells you what ability to use. It no longer says "active mitigation". For example of DH the journal directly tells you to use Demon Spikes for any ability with such check.

[Absintheminded]

Yes, Soul Barrier is active Mitigation. Since you have to actively use it to Mitigate Damage.

http://wow.gamepedia.com/Active_Mitigation

- - - Updated - - -



What the fuck gibberish is that. In your Words, Wow, there is SO much misinformation here.

Shut the fuck up, dude. He was 100% right. The problem is that Blizzard came up with AM as a style of tanking and most classes have several abilities that fall in this category *but* added encounter mechanics that require AM usage and that is only one specific ability per class. For the context the OP was looking for, Demon Spikes is the only ability that can pass these checks.

[Deleted]

I think it does

[Deleted]

You have no idea.
Active Mitigation is that which does not happen passively.
Armor on gear is passive, resistance gear is passive, soul leech on a warlock for example.
If you press a button to have the effect of mitigation, then it is active.
Be that a heal or a reduction, or avoidance of something incoming.

It does not matter how you know what to do, its the fact you still do something to mitigate whatever it is.

However, from the bosses of the dungeons of the game point of view, there's only a certain number of "active mitigation skills", for example, when the last boss of Neltharion (Dragul is called?) do the ability you have to mitigate, if I use demon spikes it doesn't affect me, but if I use empower wards or fiery brand, both which should be considered active mitigations, the boss ability still hits me for the full effect.

And that happens with all the bosses which the game tells you to use an active mitigation.
For warriors that special ability is shield block, for paladins, shield of the righteouness, for demon hunters is demon spikes. I do not know which abilitys are for DK and druids.

So It should be tried, but I doubt soul barrier counts as an active mitigation towards that special abilitys. I do also think Blizz should change it to make really all active mitigations and not only "the special one" of each class.

[jayinjersey]

They wanted the special one of each class as they a) wanted to make sure everyone had at least one and b) didn't want one tank being more viable than another.

That caused a big hoopla back in SOO witht he Klaxxi bosses and the one that had the blood worm if you didn't have an "Active Mitigation" up...and the big problem being Monk Guard and Bear Tanks didn't have an "Active Mitigation" for them (might have been DK and Monk...can't remember)


They should rename the "Active Mitigation" to "Hard Counter" so that one can intelligently converse using AM and PM as descriptors and HC as the boss bypass.

[Narzok]

what i find really annoying about the whole "active mitigation" mechanic is that the different AM abilities are not worth the same in how strong they are and how frequent they can be used.

Demon Spikes can have an uptime of almost 100% if specced into it (I KNOW IT IS NOT THE OPTIMAL BUILD!! but it is possible) while others have a fixed CD.

so some tanks can throw out AM abilities and be fine because they either have a def CD that is not an AM, but covers other spikes of dmg (warrior with ignore pain), or because they have the AM ability ready again very fast (DH with Demon Spikes).

Another annoying factor is that DK for example have to hit something for their AM to procc. not sure about monk and bear as i don't play them, but having to hit a target to
activate AM, while nice and in line with class fantasy, can create artifical difficulty in handling a mechanic where you have nothing to hit at the moment an AM-ability is needed.

EDIT:
they should just add an ability for all tanks that does not give any defensive boost, but simply a buff "counters deady mechanics", or something similar.
that way every tank would have a clear AM-Ability and can use the real defensive skills when they are actually needed.
(and not for something useless like Darkrul playing baseball with me-.-)

[Littlepwny]

what i find really annoying about the whole "active mitigation" mechanic is that the different AM abilities are not worth the same in how strong they are and how frequent they can be used.

This is really not a problem. The boss abilities generally have a long enough CD that every tank can deal with them very easily with their Active Mitigation regardless of cooldown (0 seconds for Druid vs DH with 12 seconds with 2 stacks). The strength of the active mitigation is also irrelevant since the tank is balanced around it. The mechanic also, generally, requires Active Mitigation to be present for pretty much a single hit making the duration irrelevant.

The only exception is Tyrathon that actually does require ~12 seconds of constant active mitigation which makes it much harder for some tanks (Death Knights) while a joke for others (DH or Druid)

[ComputerNerd]

However, from the bosses of the dungeons of the game point of view, there's only a certain number of "active mitigation skills", for example, when the last boss of Neltharion (Dragul is called?) do the ability you have to mitigate, if I use demon spikes it doesn't affect me, but if I use empower wards or fiery brand, both which should be considered active mitigations, the boss ability still hits me for the full effect.

And that happens with all the bosses which the game tells you to use an active mitigation.
For warriors that special ability is shield block, for paladins, shield of the righteouness, for demon hunters is demon spikes. I do not know which abilitys are for DK and druids.

So It should be tried, but I doubt soul barrier counts as an active mitigation towards that special abilitys. I do also think Blizz should change it to make really all active mitigations and not only "the special one" of each class.

Active Mitigation is the player taking an active role in mitigating damage they receive.
It is not limited to just dealing with the stated abilities of a boss, but in general.

http://wow.gamepedia.com/Active_Mitigation

As that states, some abilities "embody" active mitigation - but it isn't limited to those.
You actively mitigating the damage you receive, through either reducing it, avoiding it, or healing it.

It does not mean that every active mitigation is ideal for every situation, but it does not mean something ineffective in that case isn't still active mitigation.

[Deleted]

Above site about Active Mitigation was last time edited in 2014, and based on some of information from 2011.
Sience this time some of tank / boss mechanics have changed, and "Active Mitigation" has new confusing deffinition. It work as was described by MetalMusicMan.


Not using your "counted" as Active Mitigation (AM) skill for AM checks will finish with kiling blows on tank with higher Mythic+ dungeons as healer will be not able to keep tank alive who fail his tasks. You can take extra damage and use Another "Active skill", but it will not do it job as using Demon Spikes before each AM check atack. Or extend fight making absorbing barrier around boss.

[Seyon]

Very good information here. May I ask where you get this information ingame? I allways thought It doesn't matter which "AM" (now I know only Spikes are AM...) I would use for tanking, so I just rotated them trough when I was tanking (I mainly play havoc).

[Deleted]

Very good information here. May I ask where you get this information ingame? I allways thought It doesn't matter which "AM" (now I know only Spikes are AM...) I would use for tanking, so I just rotated them trough when I was tanking (I mainly play havoc).

Dungeon journal. First pic is how it shows for havoc, second for Veng. Darkstrikes from first boss of VotW.

[Achie]

Wow I came back for Legion and after months of tanking as OS I just discovered this. I had no idea DS was our only AM skill. Thanks a lot for this information.

[pay928]

Wow I came back for Legion and after months of tanking as OS I just discovered this. I had no idea DS was our only AM skill. Thanks a lot for this information.

I was using the Magic defensive cooldown versus magic attacks like Darkstrikes. Didn't realize this either until MetalMusicMan's post ><

[MetalMusicMan]

Heya, I wrote an article on this topic in case anyone wants to reference it in any of the wikis or share it with anyone.

http://hypedragon.net/active-mitigat...rcraft-legion/

[Achie]

Heya, I wrote an article on this topic in case anyone wants to reference it in any of the wikis or share it with anyone.

http: // hypedragon. net /active-mitigation-in-world-of-warcraft-legion/

Thanks a lot man! This should help others massively.

I was using the Magic defensive cooldown versus magic attacks like Darkstrikes. Didn't realize this either until MetalMusicMan's post ><

Yeah I was on the same train, using "common sense" as so mitigate spells with specific skills accordingly, but now I understand.

[Tinary]

Demon spikes is only active mitigation for veng demon hunter for those ability's that require it.

[Ehrgein]

I thought it was obvious since the journal clearly states that demon spikes is the ability you need to use to counter some spells, realized that a few times against dargrul while I was getting ping pongd all over the place.

[Better]

Active Mitigation is the player taking an active role in mitigating damage they receive.
It is not limited to just dealing with the stated abilities of a boss, but in general.

http://wow.gamepedia.com/Active_Mitigation

As that states, some abilities "embody" active mitigation - but it isn't limited to those.
You actively mitigating the damage you receive, through either reducing it, avoiding it, or healing it.

It does not mean that every active mitigation is ideal for every situation, but it does not mean something ineffective in that case isn't still active mitigation.

What is currently called active mit is ONLY the spells that counter certain boss abilities. Example:
Dargrul has an ability called Molten Crash. This ability is pure magic damage, and if active mit isn't up doubles the damage, and knocks the tank back. You'd think a tank would use the anti-magic mitigation, but instead DHs HAVE to use Demon Spikes to counter the double damage, and knockback. No other DH skill will work to prevent this. This is the DH active mit.

[Draeth]

I got a good chuckle out of the people in this thread who didn't know what the Active Mitigation mechanic is and insisted that it's any ability that mitigates damage, actively.

Goes to show you why Vengeance has a reputation for being bad tanks.