We started Morogrim attempts last night, and one of the biggest issues was the MT taking too much damage as earthquake happens (as outlined in other threads, where EQ would eat a charge of shield block, resulting in a crushing right afterwards).

We have two very geared prot warriors in the guild, and we've been using the OT to intervene the MT on potentially high burst fights (30% of Mag, where everyone gets stunned, the OT can eat the hit during the stun so we won't have a potentially dead MT. We generally shield wall for 30%, but back when we were learning it, one attempt shield wall was down, and MT died as everyone got stunned, in one of those WTF just happened situations).

Since Morogrim has a relatively high potential of bursting down the MT. We've decided that for every EQ, the OT can intervene in and take a hit, with shield block on. We're wondering if the OT should be in avoidance gear or stam gear. The question is, how does facing work with intervene? Is it the intervened person's facing that decide whether or not you're facing the boss (and therefore be able to dodge/parry/block) or is it the intervening person? There's almost no chance for the OT dying, because crushing + EQ won't add up to 15k, or 18k really. I don't know what his unbuffed hp is in avoidance gear, but I don't think he can be 2 shotted like that. If the OT can avoid, then it's definitely worth it to wear avoidance gear, otherwise, pure armor is better.

We use every possible counter to burst damage on the MT. Avoidance is hardly reliable. We always have scorpid sting up. Because of only one raiding shammy, we give windfury to melee DPS. Grace of air is same as avoidance, hardly reliable. Intervening does a lot more than a prayer of mending, earth shield proc, or a power shield. Hell it does all of those combined and more probably. Abusing intervene can really cut down the burst potential of a boss mob.

I occasionally play a warrior and OT on mag, and I remember blocking after intervening the MT. But I don't remember if I was facing Mag or not. Since I was intervening from behind Mag, it's more likely that I wasn't facing Mag, but it might've been right after an auto attack from Mag, and by the time his next auto attack (the one that hit me) happened, I already turned to face Mag.

I also will not claim that I completely understand the mechanics for Intervene, but this is my take on it.

When a warrior intervenes someone, their target will gain the Intervene buff, which makes the intervening warrior take a hit that would have otherwise hit the target. This means that if your intervened target parries or dodges, he does not get hit, which would not trigger the consumption of the Intervene buff. If he does indeed get hit, it will be as if the mob hit the intervening warrior directly. Since it already hit, there is no way to avoid it (dodge/parry), and the intervening warrior will take the damage. However I believe that the block and armor should be on the intervening warrior's end. I can say with pretty high confidence that the armor of the intervening warrior is the armor that is considered when he takes damage from Intervene. When I get Intervened on trash that has consistently hit me for 8-10k damage (I'm cloth), I'm quite positive that the warrior who intervened me does not get hit for that much, so that should mean that his armor is what determines how much damage he takes. As far as blocking, I cannot say much, but if his gear does determine the amount of damage, and from how I can tell Intervene works, it seems that it is as if the mob directly struck the intervening warrior, so he should be able to block the attack.

And greetings from nerdcraft. Good luck with Morogrim!

Ahoy, I've recently seen you around. A new transfer?

I'm 100% sure that the intervening warrior's armor is taken into account, and your take on this could be right. I was hoping someone already had the answer, but tonight I might get my tanks to do some testing to see how exactly intervene works.

The only thing that might contradict your theory is that, when I (intervening warrior) intervene the MT, it says that I dodged/parried the attack, not the MT. This leads me to believe that it is my avoidance that matters, not the intervened.

I'll post results from some tests if I end up doing any (arena season ending, gotta rack up some rating to get to 5k before 19th).

Mechanics of Intervene

I know this isn't exactly the answer to your question, but it was already involving the interesting mechanics of intervene.

Unfortunately, so far nothing has solved the problem of whose facing matters in the case of intervene.