Istaril

Shield Ally was acting up during last night's Nexona pulls, so I went out to test some Shield Ally troubles I'd neglected to test before. Let's start by saying I never forget to cast it. I have never before forgotten to cast it, it's in the most explicit possible place on my hotbars, and my logs show my cast message every time. It's our most important buff by far...

A great many of our nexona attempts, I noticed, my shield ally wasn't working at all. 0 blocks, 0 parries, 0 dodges... independent of whether the tank had a tank-avoidance buff up or not. Some attempts the tank had a tank avoidance buff (which worked or didn't independent of whether shield ally did or didn't).


So I decided it was time to put all possible shield ally information to the test.


I took a level 26 Brigand, grouped with him, and had him killing level 24 Steelhoof Pariahs in thundering steppes, testing avoidance.

1) Shield Ally does STILL does not use your avoidance - no matter how high your agility, defense, etc, you will not cause a miss. Miss rates of mobs did not increase with shield ally cast with no parry/block. This is as initially suspected.
Still to do:
-Test Shield Ally with a low level shield equipped (to have a shield equipped, but make blocks preventing misses a non-issue)
-Test to see if the cleric engaging will change miss-rate.

2) Shield Ally does NOT work up to 20m. The furthest range I can confirm shield ally working is 19m. If you stand at max heal range, you will get NO benefit from shield ally.

3) Shield Ally does depend on your facing; if you do not face the mob (tank?), you cannot block for your target (but you can still parry w/unconstested parry). If you face the mob (tank?), you resume blocking.

4) Shield Ally works independently of you engaging the mob. You will both parry and block, even while not engaged with the mob.



Point number 2; the dangerous one. This is the one I first suspected of messing with shield ally on nexona. Standing closer seemed to reduce the frequencies of shield ally not working - but not eliminate them. I suspect some z-axis issues messing with the remaining attempts.

Snark

so how do I face if I am underneath a mob and the tank is infront of me? (facing me)

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Nofear

I am confused. Are you saying you should be facing the mob and standing shoulder to shoulder with the tank? Or do you need to be standing 19 meters away from the tank but still facing the mob (so standing behind the tank by 19 meters?)

Istaril

YOU need to be facing the mob. The mob doesn't need to be facing you. If you're under the mob the best way to check is to have autoface on... you'll face the mob you're engaged with. You can be anywhere as long as the mob is in your forward arc.

And you have to be within 19m of the main tank.

It's pretty straightforward.

Steeltoed

Bah, nm, misread your post. That pretty useful to know, coulda swore I was blocking hits from the OT when not facing the mob.

Istaril

It may be that you need to be facing the tank - I didn't really have a way of testing that, as the mobs I was fighting had too small a hit-box.

I know that if I turned my back to the encounter (the Brigand fighting the steelhoof), I would ONLY parry.

Izzdar

Did they change this to 19m Bc on overking I always stand at max heal range and this was never a issue.I will do some testing myself.

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Istaril

Ran a quick 15 min test - yeah, you have to be facing the mob, not the tank.

You can have your back to the tank, and face the mob - and you'll still block.

But if you have your back to the mob (say, between the mob and the tank, facing the tank), you will not block.


Re:19m
I don't know if it's a change or not, but I do know that it's not something I encountered (but wasn't looking for) before, and that if I stand out of max heal range, then step until I am in it, I will not make avoidance check for my tank until I take another ~2 steps forward.

Istaril

Before someone asks the obvious question - I have nothing which increases the range on my heal spells to beyond 20m.

I am, however, measuring 20m from the Tank (target of the buff) and not the mob, so that might be (although unlikely to be - that would be some messed up coding) the source of the problem. Might be worth checking... since it's checking facing towards the mob. It would explain a few things though

Istaril

It appears range is drawn to target (as you'd expect), not to mobs.