This existence of this buff was hotly debated at first, but analysis of boss attempts and long nights of fighting in the Plateau have mostly proven it to be true. There are a few theories as to why this buff exists, the most likely being that it is a band-aid on a gearing issue as they move away from Crushing Blows. As far as I know, nothing in the raid dungeon can land a Crush. If I understand Druid tank mechanics correctly(and there's a chance I don't), removing Crushing Blows would make them nearly unbreakable. However, removing Crushing Blows and implementing this buff is decent enough way to put a band-aid on something they want to move away from before they're able to make sweeping changes in Wrath of the Lich King. There's a net increase in damage taken, but it isn't as massive as it sounds. Bosses are still being killed.
If you're interested in this little(big) buff(nerf?), take a look behind the cut!
Patch 2.4 sounds great, but what's in it for you? Find out on our Sunwell Isle page where we list the impact on classes, professions, PvP, Raiders and many other playstyles and interests including walkthroughs on the new Sunwell Daily Quests. Looking for more great info? Check out the WoW Insider Directory for the best of our guides and analysis.Another theory is that this buff is temporary, and it goes away in Phase 3 of the Isle of Quel'Danas progression. I'm not sure where this theory came from, possibly something from the PTR. It makes a little story sense, the strength of the mobs inside the raid weaken as their faction loses ground. Then again, you would think something in the event would mention that.
The third interesting theory is that this spell is Blizzard's way of being sure they can nerf the bosses quickly and easily if they decide it's tuned too difficult. Altering a spell or removing a spell may be easier than changing an entire encounter. Again, I don't think that this one is likely.
The first theory is the one that is probably the most likely. I don't think Blizzard likes Crushing Blows, and current itemization doesn't lend itself well to a world without Crushes. Certain tanks would become crazy, crazy powerful. We may see a removal of Crushing Blows in Wrath and a revamp of how tank gear is itemized. This lends itself well to Death Knight theorycrafting. Without the addition of a brand new mechanic to the class, Death Knights would have an incredibly hard time pushing Crushes off while Dual Wielding or Two Handing. Parry stacking for the win? This is most likely their attempt at seeing how a lack of Crushing Blows will work, while still making a raid zone difficult.
I don't mind it, to be honest. My raid's healers may disagree with me, but it doesn't seem like it would be substantially harder in all situations. The incoming damage will be higher, but probably more steady. The random insta-gib might be going the way of the Dwarven Mage, but we can't say for sure quite yet. After all, Kil'jaeden might hit our tank with a 35,000 damage Crush the moment we pull him, the first time we see him. Who knows?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-30-2008 @ 3:14PM
Mainstay said...
They have to kinda move away from crushing blows in order for Bears to remain viable tanks in WotLK. In WotLK all the gear is going to be upgraded further, but bears can already reach damage mitigation cap. So it's either they remove the biggest problem for bear tanks (crushing blows) or you have Druids with 90% damage resistance running around in PvP.
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3-30-2008 @ 4:34PM
BillDoor said...
The damage mitigation cap will also increase when bosses are level 83.
The biggest problem with this aura or whatever it is is that bear tanking has basically revolved around getting enough stamina to survive spikes, and then going for Dodge to avoid getting hit. This aura pretty much nerfs all existing bear gear.
3-30-2008 @ 5:06PM
Andrew said...
It's not the damage reduction, it's the dodge that makes Bear Form so handy against physical damage dealers in PvP - I can tank Rogues and Warriors in Bear Form while a Feral in Tanking gear.
When I go Resto, though, there's no chance I'd ever consider Bear Form anything more than a stop-gap; a chance to get a Bash stun off on my way to escaping. With the way Physical damage scales in PvP, anything less that full tanking gear is practically useless.
3-30-2008 @ 7:51PM
Charles said...
The aura gives tanks -20% chance to dodge and -5% chance to be missed. A T6 raidbuffed druid could easily have 60% dodge and 5% miss for 65% total avoidance. A similarly geared warrior could have 10% miss, 30% dodge and 25% parry - for 65% total avoidance. Similar numbers for a paladin. You take away -20% dodge and -5% miss, and ALL the tanking classes lose 25% avoidance. Not just bears.
If any SWP bosses are meant to crush (certainly the melee Twin did on the PTR), then in fact paladins would be worst affected by this buff - as they work by stacking avoidance + block rating to push crushing blows off the table. Losing 25% of that avoidance would make them vulnerable to crushing without seriously gimping their other stats.
Overall it means that Sunwell bosses can do more damage to tanks without actually hitting harder, which is a Good Thing™. It's way easier to heal through constant 10k hits than it is to heal through a string of dodges, parries and misses then face a pair of big 20k hits out of nowhere. It's burst that kills tanks, not steady damage.
3-30-2008 @ 7:49PM
Ruzgob said...
The Radiance Aura buff is largely a band-aid to correct the scaling of avoidance that Blizz did not have the foresight to predict. As it stands now, a tank in T6 gear, if they stack avoidance, can achieve nearly 70% pure avoidance (dodge + parry + miss).
So when designing the Sunwell, Blizz had two options:
1) Make the bosses hit so incredibly hard that two consecutive hits will kill the tank, and basically the only way to tank them successfully is to not get unlucky with the RNG
2) Artificially lower their avoidance somehow
Option #1 does not sound like much fun for anyone, so they opted to reduce avoidance, by means of a passive buff to the mobs.
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3-30-2008 @ 8:18PM
Nekrogasm said...
It's a gear check is all. There is a way to circumvent a decent fraction of the debuff though so it's not a big 'problem'.
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3-31-2008 @ 3:03AM
Kalandrah said...
Paladins and warriors need 102.4% to become uncrushable. To counteract this debuff, they would need 127.4%. Might not be hard for warriors who benefit from +75% chance to block, but paladins only gain 30% (or 35% with libram).
So if these bosses still do crushing blows, then warriors and druids won't notice much of a difference, but paladin tanks are going to be getting less avoidance AND 150% dmg hits.
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3-31-2008 @ 5:00AM
Pavid said...
I haven't really looked into this, but if they're removing crushing blows then warriors will be all but obsolete as tanks. One of the very few advantages warriors had over druids was that druids could recieve crushing blows. If it's taken away then there's no real reason to use a warrior tank anymore. Druids simply have way more mitigation and health. I knew the devs mentioned they were going to be removing crushing blows but it still upsets me. If this goes through then it's the last straw for me. I'm sick of warriors being pushed aside when we sacrifice so much more than druid tanks and afterall we are supposed to be the best tanks in the game. There's no reason why a hybrid class, and it doesn't get anymore hybrid than druids, should be equal to or better than a prot warrior at tankings. It's totally unfair and I won't stand for it.
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3-31-2008 @ 5:41AM
superfrank said...
Catform druids are lapping up your tears like milk.
3-31-2008 @ 8:53AM
Chamual said...
Um, who actually ever said that Prot warriors were supposed to be the best tanks in the game? Where has this idea come from? What makes warriors so special that they have to be singled out as the only 'proper' tanks?
Warriors can do more than tank y'know, they can also do very good DPS so they are a tank\dps hybrid. Paladins are tank\healer hybrids, and druids are tank\healer hybrids (seriously, you ever seen a druid taken to the raid solely to DPS?).
All 3 tanking classes are hybrids, and no single one is supposed to be the 'proper' tanking class.
4-03-2008 @ 2:42PM
Dawkins said...
Without it you can afford not to take shield specialization, re-gem for stamina and threat generation, etc... Warriors will not be obsolete if you know your class.
3-31-2008 @ 8:54AM
Angus said...
"I'm sick of warriors being pushed aside when we sacrifice so much more than druid tanks and afterall we are supposed to be the best tanks in the game."
Who said you were supposed to be the best tanks in the game?
And why act like you aren't a hybrid too?
Last I saw a Warrior not in prot spec was one of the 2 classes best suited to Arena and most of the time they do very well in PVP or even in PVE.
Warriors are a great tank. You want a reason to bring a warrior instead of a bear?
Spell reflect.
Shield wall.
Last stand.
Mocking Blow.
Shouts.
Bear got any of those besides demoralizing shout?
Bear have anyway to add HPs during a fight to deal with spike damage? No, they can heal a crappy amount at the cost of a bunch of rage slowly.
Bear got multiple ways to grab aggro back? Nope, 1.
Bear have a way to reduce all incoming damage to a tiny fraction of normal to give the healers a chance to catch up?
Bears have a way to gain aggro on spellcasters by simply making them eat their own shots and so they avoid all that damage?
Ever have a bear tank Kael in TK? Nope. Won't happen. Not even Paladins are wanted for this because the fight is just that much safer with a warrior.
Until this patch bears were fighting to get threat against certain mobs. Now at least every creature can bleed. Before you could sunder armor mobs bears couldn't put their best threat generating debuff on and it was much easier to maintain threat.
All this and warriors still act like they should get more stuff on a platter. Try looking at all your upgrades in most slots and wondering how you are going to make the defense required to not be hit by a crit. You forced to get PVP gear to tank?
(FYI: I don't play a Druid)
3-31-2008 @ 10:00AM
Diabla said...
I wuv you Angus, have my bear cubs!
Look, each of us tanking classes have a different specialty. That is the thing that makes us _different_ not _better_ than one or the other. Pallies can take and hold more mobs more reliably than either Warriors or Druids. Warriors are all gogo Gadet with thier spell reflect and Shield walls and such so are more suited for those encounters with lots of o sh*t moments. Bears have huge pools and armor pools to take those crushing blows and and not be a PITA to heal.
I think people like Pavid up there still complain about how big Druids health pools are because they don't understand fundamental class mechanics b/t the three tanking types and why Druids need that health buffer. Warriors and Pallies have tools and mechanics to keep from getting crushing blows. Druids do not. Warriors and pallies have panic buttons. Druids do not. Druids are built to just sit there and take it. If we don't dodge it, that's where that big ass health pool comes in and lets us look back at em and /giggle. People like Pavid should really become educated and stop being so biased...
3-31-2008 @ 10:17AM
Diabla said...
Ok, I'm off my tanget and soapbox lol
It's going t be interesting how they rebalance encounters as well as tank itemization and mechanics for each Warriors, Druids and Pallies. Without crushing blows, Blizz will have to up damage done by a boss somewhere or everything will be outta wack a little.
I'm no theorycrafter, but I can kinda see where Blizz is going with this buff thing. I think it probably should be more debuff on the tanks when they engage the boss as oppsosed to the raid overall because then Blizz can make it affect things like armor, mabey health (in the ase of the Druid), less chance to block (for Warriors/Pallies). Just to be more tank specific b/c really, crushing blows are a tanks concern ...and the healers to a lesser extent b/c they're healing. But really, it's about the games tanks. The entire raid eating a boss buff to make tanking work is a bit over board imo.
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3-31-2008 @ 10:43AM
Zuqual said...
First, I suspect that most of the people whining about this aren't running sunwell and never will. Hopefully people playing at that level can understand why this was implemented and what the alternative was. Obviously this hasn't been a huge hinderance to raiding guilds since they are downing the first three bosses left and right.
Second, I believe this could also have been implemented to negate the newly emerging melee imune characters. Even before 2.4 came out theorycrafters had realized that it was theoretically possible for rogues and druids to hit 102.4% pure avoidance, mostly from dodge, which would have made them immune to physical damage. With a few peices of 2.4 gear and the ease of getting 10 agility gems for such an experiment, the goal became much more atainable. Needless to say, a melee immune character might be able to trivialize some of the mobs in sunwell, where it not for the implementation of this buff that now requires one to reach 127.4% avoidance.
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3-31-2008 @ 11:48AM
Angus said...
I saw the requirements to do it for a bear.
It was nuts and dependent on the idol proc to make the last bit.
Essentially ALL that bear was taking was crushing blows and their HP Pool wasn't as high as it would need to be to survive a string of 2 hits. With every boss throwing magic damage around it would mean that you are seeing those healers scramble to keep the tank topped off and hoping for no unlucky string of 2 CBs.
I think a better way of doing this would have been to simply allow them to have that godlike avoidance and mitigation. Just require that more and more threat needs to be applied. Force the tanks to have to use their top end gear and have some DPS gear put in to increase their threat. They do it with paladins. Imagine if tankadins were to be okay with their gear being where it is, but any further ilevel stuff is all about threat.
Make ti a general theme and state, in public, that avoidance and mitigation are about capped. "We want the tanks to take some hefty damage. We will now force raid DPS into insane levels and those tanks are going to have to dedicate gear to threat."
Yes, bears have an advantage here, but with a few tweaks the other 2 tanks could easily catch up.
3-31-2008 @ 12:35PM
Suzushiro said...
The people claiming this to be a nerf to tanks are missing the point. The DPS of the mobs in Sunwell is the same with this buff as it would have been had they not put this buff in, they're just hitting more often for less, making the damage less spiky and more predictable. I don't know about you guys, but I'd much rather heal a tank getting hit for 5k 50% of the time than one getting hit for 10k 25% of the time, all other things equal.
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4-11-2008 @ 3:33PM
thain said...
For whoever is speaking of the death of warriors as tanks you should probably think again.
Do you know how much magical damage mitigation a Bear has? ......... 0%.
Compared to 10% from defensive stance + x% from talent for warriors. +A spell interrupt + Spell Reflection. Tanks don't always have the bonus of a rogue right beside them to interupt anything that might need to be interrupted. As it appears right now the follows seems to be blizzards goal.
Druids - Best physical damage tank, best dps ability when not tanking.
Warriors - Best magical tank
Paladins - Best AoE tank
Im not saying these tanks cannot cross over, bears swipe and warriors can thunderclap for aoe aggro, and paladins have some magic mitigation and druids can usually just HP thru magical damage. But tanks, just as healers and dps have situations they are ideally and not so ideally suited for.
Ever heal a fight you have to move constantly on as a paladin? Ever fight a boss that has 30k armor as a rogue? Or fight a boss with spell immunity/reflect as a mage?
Right now the biggest problem about druids is that they are far away the best class to have around when they arent tanking. A prot warrior/paladin is a wasted raid slot if not tanking (altho the pally can still be a dispelbot for the situations that call for it). And the biggest drawback of the Druid(other than magical damage)? They have no OS button. A warriors Shield Wall can potentially mitigate thousands upon thousands of damage if timed correctly. And a Paladins lay on hands obviously is quite the powerful last resort to avoid death. Frenzied regeneration? maybe 3k health over 15s, ill take 20k health instantly or 75% mitigation every day of the week.
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