I predict this will be hot fixed soon.
It really is not difficult to attempt to get into the hitbox to soak 3 or 4 beams. It's been done since SL hit. And if even the borderline exploiting teleport does not guarantee successful intercepting all 4 beams and you still need to have the other players stand around as backup I see nothing noteworthy about this post.
There is a potential issue which might be something that Blizzard choose modify in some way for this soaking strategy.The spell 'Ritual of Woe' does physical damage, so if a player is for example immune to physical damage at the moment they intercept all four beams. It actually causes the activation/channeling of the spell to fail/fizzle removing all 4 beams immediately. The basis on which you can see this is that if a Mage intercepts a beam and uses their 'Ice Block' the debuff is removed from the mage and the beam they were soaking disappears.This means there are actually several classes that have abilities which make them immune to physical damage and even removes the debuff from them when used. Mage with 'Ice Block' obviously or Paladin with Bubble for example are the quickest ones to highlight. So in essence any Mage or Paladin who is Venthyr will be able to utilize a well timed Door of Shadows @target Macro to position themselves to soak all four beams but instead of soaking them they utilize their abilities which make them immune to disrupt and stop the ability almost immediately upon activation. The only thing I am not sure about and would be curious for clarification would be in relation to timing. Does it require that the player initially get all four debuffs then use their immunity to remove them in addition to becoming immune to the channeling aspect which results in the ability Ritual of Woe cancelling? or is that they can just be immune upon the activation and because they do not get the debuffs that causes the ability to cancel? Whichever it is or does it matter? Just curiousThis concept makes certain classes a highly desired and potentially even required classes for groups pushing higher keys. That is something that potentially may have ramifications which mean that a change is made in the way that Ritual of Woe works to make it so that the effects work through immunities.
Looks like a bug, no? Ritual of Woe applies a debuff that can't be stacked in "normal intended play", so if getting a player to use a teleport ability PRECISELY to the center of symmetry of the boss allows that player to soak 4 stacks, that's clearly a bug. I also don't think they will gut macros, though perhaps they will finally let us just choose if we want to cast them from bars with reticle, or through a @target macro at target, without clumsy mod keys.The easiest fix feels like simply adding a range requirement, making it so that to soak, the player has to be like 1yd from the boss or more... and it's done...
Have they even said if the @target macro change was a bug in the first place?
I am mostly curious why the beams just don't simply stack? Sure having all 4 on the tank would still be widely possible to heal with just minor cooldowns, but not having them apply a stacking debuff seems like a weird choice.