Power word: Barrier and it's irrelevancy

Long story short. This game is designed, from A to Z, on making players “relocate” their positions. Every single mechanic in game is about, “move away from here”. With this given, every boss fight is already about “all movement” and afflixes like “sanguine, quaking” etc. to make people “relocate and spread”, on top of that, is now added the “+/- charges” afflix, which forces more relocate and spread.

The question is… Is there a single boss, single fight, single week in the mythic+ dungeons, where PW: Barrier will be of “any” use or relevancy ? My answer is no.

Lot’s of people will now come up like “L2P issue” or “don’t spec that talent then” etc. I will just ignore you lads. Sorry. Give an argument, not just a “negating” comment. Give me a single mythic+ boss fight with a single week of afflixes where PW: Barrier will be useful.

Disc is lacking on CDs in m+. Barrier supposed to be something important. But it is totally irrelevant in mythic +. Must be changed.

I’d like to see barrier follow up your target. Would be useful for PvP too (and a bit OP).

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We actually had a talent like that on BFA. It replaced the barrier and gave absorb shields to everyone in raid. Luminious Barrier

Yet, i agree that kind of a spell would be like… a bad design. But that aside… let’s say adding an optional talent to barrier slot called:

“inner sanctum : every player with atonement on themselves gain %10 damage reduction equal with the duration of the remaining time of their atonement” - 3 min CD

with that, it woul be a sacrifice of %15 reduction to choose this talent instead barrier and could still be “of some use” in m+ and wouldn’t be a faceroll design too.

Mhmm, I am not a fun of this one in terms of PvP. I love barrier, I think it’s what makes priest strong in arena, but it just really frustrates to see people leaving it. So some kind of mechanism to stick it to the target would be nice. Maybe option to relocate it when I reactivate ability?

I don’t think this is true. Looking at encounters in mythic+ I’d say well over half of them have no real reason to deter stacking up in anticipation for specific high damage mechanics. What is true though is, at least currently, players have no expectation for their own positioning to matter in mythic+ beyond simply avoiding a mechanic.

There is, for example, absolutely zero reason for ranged to be spread out on Granyth or Maruuk in nokhud offensive, yet people will routinely be standing as far apart as possible. Even the storm boss mechanics chill out during the storm itself letting your group stack for heals as long as there aren’t too many orbs.

You’ve also got fights like Hyrja in Halls of Valor which force the group to stack tight under the boss to take reduced damage already. In fact HoV is a prime dungeon for barrier with 3 bosses that do massive group wide AoE and have zero mechanics to deter stacking at that time.

I do agree barrier is overly finicky in dungeons and often neglected or difficult to get good value out of; especially on trash, but it can absolutely be a powerful tool in good groups that recognise when there’s no good reason to be spread across the room. Does that mean it’s fine? Probably not, probably does need some changes or additions through talents to be better in dungeon content, but it’s far from useless as you say.

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Hyrja in Halls of Valor, first pack of adds in Temple of Jade Serpent, 2nd boss in Temple of Jade Serpent, last boss add phase in Temple of Jade Serpent, 3rd boss in Azure Vault, 1st boss in Ruby Life pools. Probably even last boss in Court of Stars too. Plenty of uses even when pugging and can also use as a personal or tank cd.

You normally “could” stack on those packs you mentioned here. But not with these afflixes now. PuGs already do never care, and even if you are a comm group, they can’t stack now with the current afflixes.

The moment you stack up, either some big aoe sht will appear under your feet or an afflix. %100.

Current affixes are grievous and bursting. Thundering drops the lightning pools when it activates but they’re not that hard to avoid and come once every minute on a fixed timer.

Last week with quaking it was absolutely annoying, but not now.

when i wrote “current” it wasn’t for just this week. i mainly meant the thundering. thundering’s timer can be fixed. but is it fixed when the party will have to avoid the damage ? whenever i need barrier, either some big aoe sht appears under my feet or an afflix.

Thundering is every minute and accompanied by some circles under people’s feet. You know exactly when they’ll spawn, you can position on the edge of the barrier (Still inside it) and have space to dodge your circles without leaving the barrier.

People have a lot of adjusting to do, and you’re right barrier is overly limited in keys, but people are going to get better at planning for thundering and recognising when it’s best on bosses to just stack up. Darkness has the same limitations and still manages to be a ridiculously powerful cd.

i love pw: barrier, and the fact that it’s location-based is what makes it interesting to me, and the pvp talent choice that comes with it is great. i think the game needs more of those kind of spells where there is a trade-off. that being said, they could offer a less powerful but more flexible version of it, like in bfa as said above.

This affix week alone (a million and one swirls per dungeon not counted!) has rendered barrier completely useless.

I do put it down but everything and their uncle forces my team to walk out of it.

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I wish they would change Power word: Barrier with Luminous Barrier. We get so much random groupe damage sometimes that standing in a barrier for 8 sec won’t change the outcom at all. Also what we need is NUMBERS. Getting less damage is lovely but it won’t heal or shield and what Disci priest needs right now are Hp/ shield numbers.

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I would agree with this one. I cast barrier in PVP noone is there … becasue I don´t even know where to put it as the fight is constantly running around me so best to put on me and try to jump inside of it … other than that and the occasional use of soloing world elites it´s realyl useless and could be a mobile shield moving with the priest so people stick around him t get the buff or if cast on tnak people around tank … But yes I totally get the point.

barrier, at this current game state, is of use on only on very few instances where everyone knows pre-hand that they have to stack in it. It has to be timed, to be planned and organized. That said, is totally irrelevant outside “20 man guild raids with a healer lead”. This is bullsht.

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