A (power) word about Power Word: Barrier, prompted by the latest Beta build (13277).
The latest change is:
Power Word: Barrier – duration reduced to 10 sec, down from 25 sec. No longer absorbs a given amount of damage, now reduces all damage done to friendly targets by 30%. While within the barrier, spellcasting will not be interrupted by damage.
A brief history
If you want to explore the history of PW:B properly, you need to go back to February 2009, before Ulduar was released, when Wryxian posted a list of upcoming Priest changes for the 3.1.0 patch, including:
Discipline has access to a new talent, Power Word: Barrier. (Think of it as Power Word: Shield for your whole group).
Unfortunately the spell never made it into the game at the time, much to the disappointment of Disc Priests the world over.
Over the following year it seems Blizzard hadn’t given up on the spell, and PW:B made a reappearance in the Cataclysm class previews in April:
Discipline will finally be getting Power Word: Barrier as a talented ability. Think of it like a group Power Word: Shield.
The closest analogue to PW:B is the DK Anti-Magic Zone, but it has some important differences, such as a way to counter it in PvP (since it absorbs all damage, not just magical damage).
Early versions on the Beta were buggy, absorbing the wrong amount of damage or disappearing almost instantly. Finally though, the spell evolved into a working version and hit the Live servers with patch 4.0.1.
The version which made it to Live in 4.0.1 has the following functionality:
Power Word: Barrier Level 80
30% of base mana 40 yd range
Instant cast 3 min cooldown
Summons a holy barrier on the target location that absorbs ((19005 + (6 * $SP)) * .20) damage done to friendly targets within it each time they take damage. While within the barrier, spellcasting will not be interrupted by damage. The barrier lasts for 25 sec or until it absorbs (19005 + (6 * $SP)) damage.
Put simply, the barrier absorbs around 45000 damage in total, with an individual cap of around 8500 per person within the barrier, then it will disappear.
The new Beta build changes the function pretty fundamantally:
- The mechanic is no longer an absorb, just a flat 30% damage reduction
- The duration is fixed at 10s, rather than being variable anywhere up to 25 seconds depending on how much damage is absorbed
- The cooldown is down to 2 minutes, instead of 3
The problem
So why this big change to PW:B?
I think the underlying problem is the way the absorb cap works, which changes how the spell behaves in different raid sizes.
Suppose you cast PW:B on the melee DPS group (since they’re grouped up already); in a 10-man raid that might only be 2 people, while in a 25-man you’re probably looking at 8 people. Since the overall absorb cap is the same in each mode, your PW:B is used up a lot sooner that you expect in the 25-man situation (it’s ‘balanced’ around 5 people benefiting).
Raise the absorb cap so that it lasts a reasonable amount of time in 25-man and you end up being theoretically able to cover the whole raid for several seconds in a 10-man, which is a little overpowered. A flat 30% reduction on the other hand works in a predictable way, regardless of the raid size.
What this does, in effect, is give us a Priestly twist on Divine Sacrifice. Plunk it down and get people to run under it, and they all get a 30% cooldown. Or, to quote Matticus, we’ve been given “Power Word: Suppression”!
My thoughts
I’m slightly disappointed that the new PW:B is a bit less exciting and unique than the old one was, but I do understand why the change was made and I think it’ll be better for us in the long run.
It was very frustrating to put a PW:B down in a 25-man raid and have it disappear in seconds, and it has the side benefit of making the otherwise tempting Glyph of Power Word: Barrier a more practical choice again. And it’s still in keeping with the Discipline position as a damage absorber/preventer.
I do wonder, in the light of this change, if there’ll be changes made to Pain Suppression, since there’s a lot of overlap now. My worst fear is a shared cooldown (two damage reduction cooldowns means one every 1 minute 12 seconds on average, which is quite a lot) and my brightest hope is a stronger damage reduction on PS to better differentiate it from PW:B. We’ll have to wait and see.
If they’d share cooldown there’d be no reason to use PS since you’d rather pop a barrier around the tank, which then might protect other players as well, rather than just reduce the damage of one person, I think. So Blizzard probably won’t do that… But you’e right in that it makes you wonder what PS will be good for. In a way of course we just got two great tank cooldowns.
That’s what got me wondering about a more powerful PS. Then you’d have a choice between maybe 70% on one target or 30% on an area.
Even with no changes, we’re in a good place cooldown-wise, which will make Disc a good pick for raids still.
While I don’t play a priest as my main, I used to once upon a time and I still love her (so try to keep at least somewhat up to date on the priest changes). The PW:Barrier change is interesting and I guess we’ll have to wait and see how it pans out. I suspect, as you say, that it has a lot to do with the utility in 25 or 10 man raids. I know they were making some changes to Effloresence for druids as well, and I wonder if that also has to do with the 10m versus 25m.