Quick Facts

Screenshots

Videos

Comments

Comment by Grdian

Comment by Ruthulous

Finally! Although I still mourne the original Divine Hymn effect.

Comment by Harmonex

Am I to understand that this doesn't have a cooldown?

With 2k SP, this would absorb over 20k damage. This can't be right.

Comment by Sacrosterion

It should just be a flat number, a huge power word: shield me thinks. I don't why blizzard has to make it so complicated.

Comment by Chaos101

I agree with Krdan. Consider if it was a huge Power Word: Shield, when used in a raid, the boss would knock it out in 1 aoe move, making it seem like a waste as it would only be around for a very short while. And consider in pvp... if only 1 person is inside the barrier when they are close to death, thats one hell of an absorb to try to nuke through before he/she gets a heal. Try looking at it like this...

Lets say the shield will hold until it absorbs 21000 total dmg (with 2k SP, no talents), but per attack made against anyone stood inside it, the maximum absorb one can recieve from it is 15% of the total, being 3150 in this case. Such that, small attacks up to and including 3150 will be completely absorbed (I presume) but larger attacks will still be able to penetrate. Lol penetrate. Unfortunately, for classes that hit for less per hit, such as rogues/enhance this means hardly any damage landing, but it does mean that the shield will go down faster as much more of their attacks are going into absorbs. And vice versa, for heavy hitters like Ele Shaman/Destro Locks, despite the damage over the 15% absorb still landing, they suffer a chunky nerf to outgoing damage for much longer a duration. Despite this, in pvp, both nuke and drain teams will recieve equal dampening to their respective tactics.
Interestingly, as a tank could take a hit for 21000 exactly, but would only take 3150 from its total absorb effect, thus acting more like a earthshield/living seed but instead by reducing the damage rather than healing it.
This makes calculating our total absorb in combat easy, as if you take an attack over that 15% absorb, it will tell you exactly how much of that attack was absorbed. Then one can divide the absorb number by 3, (5%) and times that new number by 20, (100%) and one knows how much their shield holds for.

"The enemy Shaman's Lightning Bolt hits you for 1500 (3900 Absorbed) Critical"
3900/3=1300
1300*20=26000 Before Barrier Breaks/Dissipates/Collapses/Diminishes/Fails... Whatever :P

My calculations make a standard, untalented PW: Barrier, recieve a 0.75 coefficient with spellpower (75% of your spellpower into total absorb, thus each absorb recieves 0.1125 (15% of 75%) per spellpower.
In lamens terms, that means you need 9 spellpower to reduce incoming damage by 1. Expect to see changes to these numbers however.

Based on how WoW has evolved since vanilla, I expect to see over 6k spellpower at 85, producing a shield holding over 40k, which should absorb damage taken by over 6k (again without talents etc). Chaos bolt will be the bane of PW: Barrier in pvp I can see it now xD

Rant over thanks for reading

Comment by Septimus

I think we are all missing the important question here.

Does it stack with this?

Comment by 630765

Omg! /drool

Comment by Gorytusk

BUBBLE SHIELD!

Comment by Azurewrath

Hmmm... it's not a buff so Mass dispell can remove it?

Comment by Leviatharan

So basically, this spell is Anti-Magic Zone on crack?

-Absorbs all damage, not just magic, and more of it to an extent
-Dropped wherever in 40 yards, instead of just around the caster
-Makes affected targets immune to pushbacks
-Lasts over twice as long

...And AMZ just has in contrast... a quarter the CD.

Seriously, even the EFFECT looks like AMZ on crack...

Comment by cmppayne26542

For those who have difficulties understanding the tooltip, the first math is the MAXIMUM amount of damage it absorbs for ONE hit.

Let's say if I had 3000 spell power at level 85.

It would absorbs 7845 Per hit, UP TO 39225 and then bursts.

This is extremely useful, because you pretty much have a paladin bubble, the only difference is it can be used on more than one person, and there is no side affects EXCEPT having to be in the bubble.

It is ranged, like mass dispel.

IF you wish to find out how much it absorbs, simply copy
((21225 + (6 * $SP)) * .20) into google and replace $sp with your spellpower.

This spell used to be not so hot, but the base absorbs was increased, and now it seems just like a paladin bubble.

Comment by runbird11

Yo dawg, we heard you like shielding, So I put shields on yo shields so you can shield while you shield.

Comment by elitearthas

I think... it is great and all but a watered down version of AMZ because it can absorb both MAGIC and PHYSICAL

Will it stack with AMZ? Of cuz... but as to how much? Likely it'll work like this

AMZ reduces spell dmg taken by 75% and will absorb up to 30k dmg (assuming 10k AP).
Barrier will absorb up to about 40k dmg (assuming 5k SP).

For those not too wonderful with Math, if you multiply 30k by 4, AMZ actually absorbed a total of 120k dmg.

My guess is basically when you stack AMZ and Barrier vs Magic dmg, both AMZ and Barrier will absorb 1 dmg each out of every 2 dmg, so you can actually absorb up to 70k X 4 = 280k dmg. Say... 25m raid hug... that's about 11.5k per person.

Sadly this cant save a group of melee-hug- the-cleaving-mob/boss-moment... 40k ... divided by the no. of geniuses... likely isnt more than 8k per genius

Comment by Taif

To put this in perspective for you all, my priest is geared almost exclusively from the old badge system (giving them 2532 spell power) and this is what they got when they logged in after 4.0.1:
The tooltip states it will "absorb 6839 damage done to friendly targets within it each time they take damage." and that it will "last for 25 sec or until it absorbs 34197 damage"

Hope that helped somewhat in making up your mind if you want the talent, why you wouldn't is beyond me though :p

Comment by somerandomhobo

Absorbs DO NOT interfere with vengeance.

Source

Comment by Daikeni

I personally think this is made for both PvP and Instances. Since everyone has already said the implications of the PvP aspect let me say a little about the instance.

Lets say a boss has a nova attack, and like many melee you have a hard time getting out if you are not paying right attention to it. This will help absorb SOME of the damage done to everyone inside of it, thus making the nova a little easier to heal afterward. Going with the base amount absorbed, 3801, if Loken on normal casts his Lightning Nova spell, it will do a total of 7K damage. This spell absorbs over half of that damage. Since no one will be going around with no +spell power on gear I would say that 6201, using 2k spell power, absorption will be great even against the Heroic version. A simple Prayer of Healing would heal through and you can time that to land just after damage is done.

Comment by Ambellina

With Cata beta build 13277 this just reduces damage taken by 30% and only lasts 10 seconds.
Not really a barrier now. :/

Comment by Waple21

When i used this spell in ICC when the green ooze came out it actually glitched the ooze and there was no knockback the ooze just stayed at the character it was targeting and did nothing.

Comment by cmppayne26542

Unfortunately this ability is ruined in PvP compared to what it used to be, a very powerful spell.

This, is one of the final nails in the coffin of why Priests that heal are lacking in arena currently.

I guess you can say it was modified to be a PvE spell.

But the good new is, it does infact stack with Pain Supression.

Comment by gemanoma

This is just like the Bella´s Shield of Twilight :D

Comment by Ty52

Power Word: Barrier + Holy Word: Sanctuary = Win (in awesome and in healing)

Comment by archonoid

it's visual effect looks like frozen holy nova..

Comment by AM1138

You can now cast targeted AoE spells like this right away where your cursor is, using @cursor in your macro.
For example:

#showtooltip
/cast Power Word: Barrier

Or to cast it at your character's feet:

#showtooltip
/cast Power Word: Barrier

Add to list...Links WeakAuras Export

Power Word: Barrier

Power Word: Barrier

4% of base mana	40 yd range

Instant	3 min cooldown

Summons a holy barrier to protect all allies at the target location for 10 sec, reducing all damage taken by 25% and preventing damage from delaying spellcasting.