I don't see many tanks dropping to single raid targets anymore from straight melee damage. Clearly the damage on MC is well behind other possible debuffs. Seems like in a raid setting MC is no longer relevant - thoughts?
Possibly, but I'm sure there are > 10 other debuffs on your bosses that are even worse. Try /inspectbuff on your raid targets a few times through the fight. I bet you get a lot of crap in the list that needs pruning before MC. And MC usually does at least 1M damage if it lasts through the 3m. There are also times when your tanks aren't the ones tanking the boss... That said, it's easy enough to test. Next run, just have all the enchanters not cast ... and look at your tanking parses and compare when you were using. Might even get data you could use to show maybe it needs a bump in the modern game.
We don't use it. I'm not a big enough spell/AA nerd to say it's irrelevant or is lagging behind other debuffs. Besides you need 3 enchanters to basically keep it up on a boss most of the time, we are lucky to have 3 enchanters on a raid.
Even if the thing in question is a steaming pile of excrement, we have learned anything we say can and will be used to nerf us is some new inventive way.
I was scanning some older threads and since you mentioned there wasn't many replies here, I'll give my input. It's still not a worthless spell, and it's *usually* meant to be used on bosses/targets that don't get spanked fast. If anything, the ability has just become much more situational to use. You won't see me using it on bosses/events that die fast. But if the boss/mob is going to be up for a while and there's no issue with it taking a little damage from the dot component then in that case I will use it. There are still plenty of situations where I would consider using it in CoV, and don't forget that if your raid is doing any achievements that the scenario may change from "tank and spank" to a controlled, longer event. So again... you need to use your judgement. I'll give a specific example for comparison: a) In Silent Redemption we wipe Sonty out pretty fast, full burn, ignore adds, the whole shabang, and it's dead (3 minutes maybe?). I have no reason to use it in this case. b) When doing Sonty with Freelance Raids on my alt (and congratulations on first win last night), it took almost an hour to beat the long way. The MTs were taking heavy damage and dying periodically. Heck, even if there was just one enchanter, I would've tried using that ability on cooldown.... It lasts 3 minutes with a 9 minute cooldown. So that would've given one enchanter the opportunity to use it at least 4 times alone. My observation and experience, however, is that my overall usage of Mental Contortion has gone down since the TBL expansion. It's become far more situational. Is this a good thing? For now, probably so, since there is many other things getting bounced off mobs: my Mind Coil, my Pulmonary Grip, my alliances!! And I'm sure the same can be said for other classes, too, that have complained on general threads about things being buff-locked. Until all those other things can be sorted out, I am fine with MC being as is in it's current state - which is just that - to be situationally used.
Mental Contortion is situationally useful. I echo everything Rexa said. The main use as I see it is when the raid needs to stabilize, and so having Mental Contortion on the raid boss is useful to mitigate the damage incoming to the main tank(s), especially when there is reduced healing capacity or additional pressure on existing healing classes. In this mode it's used because the raid is not in "DPS" or "win the event" mode, but rather in "Do not lose" mode; as a pressure release valve, Mental Contortion is pretty good.
If dot/debuff slots are in high demand - it sounds like its a waste of a spot. It does 1m over 3m? if it blocks 10+ alliances in that time slot, mob dies faster, less healing needed.
