Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Know your cooldowns part 1: Barkskin.

First, some of the earlier macros proved to have problems here and there. In particular the cyclone/hibernate/entangling roots focus macros need some more testing, which I unfortunately haven't had time for yet. They work perfectly fine with no focus target, but have problem with resetting. It seems that /clearfocus only accepts one clausul (aka modifier:shift), not several.

I want to share some thoughts on the various cooldowns we have, one at a time. Most advanced players will probably know a lot of this from earlier, but some less experienced shapeshifters might find something useful here.

First up is Barkskin:

Barkskin
12% of base mana
Instant cast
1 min cooldown

The druid's skin becomes as tough as bark. All damage taken is reduced by 20%. While protected, damaging attacks will not cause spellcasting delays. This spell is usable while stunned, frozen, incapacitated, feared or asleep. Lasts 12 sec.

Is it any good?
The short answer is yes. The slightly longer answer is "hell, yeah".

Don't fall into the trap. Many people read 20% and think "that's not all that much". Well, compare it to the priest talent Pain Suppression. 40% damage reduction. And they consider it one of the their important tools for survival. The point is, those 20% can often save your hide/tail/cloves. Using it can often be the difference between your life and death, both in PVP and PVE.

Breaking down why it's good:
  • 20% damage reduction: Unlike bearform, it provides damage reduction against everything, not only physical attacks. Granted, bearform does help because of the health boost, but this is even better. But hey, they stack!

  • It provides 100% spellcasting delay immunity: With spells that work with talents such as Nature's Focus, giving a 70% immunity it's a minor upgrade. With spells that normallly doesn't have any such immunity, it's great. Hurricane, Starfire and Hibernate comes to my mind.

  • Baseline spell: Which means that even a full feral tank which doesn't have talent points in Nature's Focus can pop out and cast some healing spells without interruption. Well, aside from instant spells.

  • Can be cast while crowd-controlled: In addition to reducing the damage taken while you're crowd-controlled, this also saves a global cooldown.

  • Low cooldown: at only 1 minute, it'll be up often. Compare it again to Pain Suppression with it's 3 min cooldown.
  • Low mana cost: Compare it's 12% base mana cost to Lifebloom at 10%.

  • Doesn't cancel when we change forms: Might seem minor, but anyone that has activated Dash only to be forced out of cat form a moment later should know why I include it.

  • Talents: Some talents can improve it, in particular
    • Brambles: 15% chance of dazing anyone attacking you while it's up.

    • Subtlety: 30% dispel resistance.

  • Can be used in Tree of Life, despite being a balance spell.



When should I barkskin?
With only 1 min cooldown, almost whenever you want.

Many druids that doesn't have Nature's Focus often want to save it for emergency healing. With the change to how spell pushback works in Wrath, it is now a bloody lot easier to cast spells while several enemies are pounding on you. A regrowth will now never take more than 3 seconds to cast, even if there are 10 enemies hitting you all the time. A tranquility is garantueed to give you at least half duraction. Short version, stop saving it for emergency healing. Learn to use it early and use it often. The only thing preventing you should be:

  • Being in bearform: It provides less damage reduction against physical attacks than staying in bear is (provided your gear isn't all that bad). The loss of the bearform health bonus doesn't help either. It can be potentially fatal to hit the barkskin button, whether by accident or intentionally, while tanking. A macro can help: /cast [nostance:1] Barkskin. This will mean it only casts it while you're not in bearform. A more advanced version can be found in my earlier post.

  • Global cooldown: Sometimes you can overreach yourself. Though barkskin is very good, if your buddy is dying and you need to heal him fast you usually don't have a global cooldown to save. If you cast Regrowth, it will be garantueed to hit faster if you don't cast barkskin first (max 3 seconds) as opposed to casting Barkskin and then Regrowth (3.5 seconds).

  • Saving a cooldown: There might be rare cases where you actually want to save your cooldown, short as it may be. One such suggestion might be if you're dotted up and have a dispeller on you. It might be better to cycloning or running away first and then cast Barkskin. This is highly situational, and what marks the difference between a good druid and a excellent one.



Some suggestions
... on when to use it.
  • Pulling while tanking: Pull with a Starfire, hit Barkskin and go bearform. 20% damage reduction for the first 10 seconds of a pull. Quicker version: Pull with Wrath or Cyclone.

  • Balance-soloing: Cast Barkskin either immidiately after pulling with Starfire, or as the third spell. Now you can chaincast Starfire if you feel like for optimal mana efficiency.

  • Healing in Treeform: Hit barkskin as soon as you're pulling aggro (unless you activate a trinket which reduces threat and the enemies actually returns to the tank). Less need to heal to keep yourself alive = less threat = easier for the tank to pull aggro off you.

  • PVP: Unless you're in bearform and got a physical attacker on you, use it as soon as you're caught in crowd control (stun, fear, etc) and likely to get incoming damage. This should be a reflex. It's pretty useless to use it while hibernated or feared if the enemy isn't going to hit you, though.

  • PVP again: A less used version, but incredibly useful: If you're fully dotted up, even if you don't have any enemy on you, you can use Barkskin to reduce the damage of the dots. Think about it as preemptive healing and practice.



If you also have the brambles talent, it gives additional utility as it makes it easier to run from dazed enemies.

Perhaps you picked up something. Stay tuned for part 2, featuring Tranquility.

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