There's an interesting new undocumented change for 3.0.8 PTR I figured merited a discussion:

I guess the relevant information needed is what sort of duration it will have, but a pretty cool change. I wonder if we can survive Sapphiron bombs, etc. by feinting just before?

Seeing as how it does some ridiculous 75k-125k damage area, I doubt it.

Bomb will still be unsurvivable, but it could help a fair bit with the latent aoe 1200/tick damage aura and reducing necessary healer output, especially in the 10-man version.

I'm curious about Vortex on Malygos, personally. Is it considered an AoE for these purposes?

Killing spree avoiding it would seem to suggest that it's not. With 21k raid-buffed, I can survive it without heals, or use a potion if I'm not fully topped off before it starts, but if feinting just before it started reduced the damage, it could prove useful.

Again, though, since Killing Spree cancels it and it's not reapplied after the killing spree duration ends, it would seem to be a "targets every player individually once and applies a debuff" rather than an actual AoE continuing effect.

Yeah I feel stupid, was just thinking of pets living through it but had forgotten they had full avoidance and not just a mitigation effect.

Interesting. What does the Glyph of Feint do now?

The duration is 6 seconds, according to the official patch notes on the Worldofwarcraft.com website.

6 seconds should be plenty long enough to absorb whatever AoE effect is coming, as long as you know the general time of arrival.

I'm excited about using it against arms warriors.

It can be a good utility tool for survival, but can't see it being used constantly in a fight.

Most aoe isn't constant, and a lot of it is timed. I just wonder how it defines aoe. If auras, frontal cones, cleaves, attacks that hit 2-3 targets only, count.

The value argument will be something like this...

Is (damage lost by moving away from target, messing up rotations, etc) > (damage lost by spending 20 energy)? If yes, Feint.

Provided of course that you couldn't originally survive (or it would be difficult on healers, etc) and that after Feint you could survive.

Most AoEs are also designed either to be healed through by healers, or for meele to run out of the range and I don't think the change will affect either of those scenarios.

Using Feint constantly for an AoE that is to be healed through by healers, further lowers our DPS contribution, AoEs that are designed to kill anyone within meele range are usually strong enough (75-125k for example) that Feint won't help us.

At best, this change will be a utility tool, used when you are low at health and have aoe damage incoming.

They are nerfing aoe heals. Cooldown for 6 sec added to Circle of Healing and such. They said they'd adjust encounters like Malygos' vortex if need be. Perhaps this is part of that adjustment.

I'm going to have to agree with a few others here.

Realistically, the idea will be to use this in snap situations, something random has happened, caught you or the raid off guard and you find yourself at low health with timed damage incoming (which is likely to kill you).

Most other situations the raid damage is there to prevent you from being somewhere and it's great enough that the new feint won't matter (eg cleave/whirl). The other case is the timed AoE damage that some bosses have; this is why there are group healers, they expect it, they anticipate it and we've all done just fine with it.

As for this being compensation for situations such as the Malygos vortex now that CoH/WG are being nerfed I don't buy it. Blizz has said that if the raid damage becomes too much for the new healing mechanics to handle then they will lessen the raid damage (not give players new mitigation skills).

I really see this as a PvP addon to a PvE skill (although the idea of feint being used in PvE gives me a giggle). It seems like a good way to mitigate some damage when being focus-fired in arenas (well, not really focus fire, but you get the idea).

No, this is an attempt to make Feint useful again (after all its got a major glyph).

Anything that relies on raid members to use a specific ability to survive the encounter (Illidan's Shear) is bad design.

Not so much to survive it. Just helps alleviate some of the damage. Can simply just make sure to have over 20K hp each time for vortex and ignore feint hope for heals incoming. Like I said, *part* of the change, not the only type of change (class specific abilities) they'd ever make.

If something like Sarth's void zones damage can be feinted, then it makes that pulse healable/not a one shot. Then it just becomes a question of DPS time lost vs. 20 energy.

So for a titanic loss in dps on Sapphiron you can mitigate the aura damage by 50%?

Color me excited enough to keep the button someplace I won't hit it by mistake.

Unless the melee range requirement is removed, you can't use this for most interesting AoE effects.

I promise to press it when the blizzard is on melee in the 10-man, since we don't move out at this point, but really, this is underwhelming. If it lasted for 30 seconds, my whelm would be dramatically increased.

I guess, i just don't get when you are supposed to use this in a way that it actually would change anything important. Other than perhaps the example of Sapphiron's blizzard landing on the melee.

Can someone perhaps provide additional examples.

If past signs hold true, I'd guess the ability truly shines in future raid instances. AoE damage on fights tended to go higher and higher with the difficulty level. Instances like Karazhan or the current Naxxramas don't really have much of it, but if you look at the possibilities of the new Feint in Sunwell, that's a whole different chapter. Before we know what's against us in Ulduar, it still is a very potent survivability ability for those "oh-shit" moments, e.g. when someone's having a brain fart on Thaddius or various versions of trash overpulls come to mind (now where did that Shade come from?).

On another note, Feint had a chance to proc your mainhand poison in TBC, and I imagine it remains so. Will confirm this later on, unless someone has already experimented with it?

Let's be honest. 2 energy/second (the price of using feint unglyphed every time it's up) is not remotely a titanic loss in dps.

I like the idea of the new feint as something rogues offer to reduce healing needed, it is a nice tool to make us less of a liability in raids, since as melee dps we are already more often subject to additional raid damage.

Surely that depends on whether it resets your global cooldown or not...

You're not GCD-locked as a rogue unless you're exploiting the stupid HaT bug.

Playing the devils advocate... so you are fine with loosing 20% of your combo points, the damage from the cp generators and 20% finisher damage.