@sigrdrifa oh I do that. When I said Bulwark doesn't land - let clarify what exactly I am seeing. When I click Bulwark and it lands, generally the icon goes dark and then it beings to ungray in accordance with the recast time. (This mean it landed) On occasion, I click Bulwark, and it goes dark and then lits up again, a second later (and no this is not Ready Up happening). I reclick Bulwark and it will then land. The same thing happens with Menace (alot actually) - I cast it, if it lands it grays out (following recast timer) else it is re-castable in a sec when the icon lights up again. Interesting it argos the target but does no damage. Menace fails to land about 2/3 of time in solos, about 1/3 of the time in Heroics, and about 1/10 time in Raids. Different issue I know - but similar to Bulwark issues.
Menace gets resisted constantly - All of the RoS prestige AAs do, because their resistability is set ridiculously high. As for clicking Bulwark and it immediately being recastable, that is either an interrupt or a refresh (Recapture, for instance) causing it. The issue Zhev is discussing here is Bulwark properly landing, but not blocking the effects of Barrage. My *assumption* is that it is being blocked by a different temp, but without the full logs from multiple times happening I don't know how I'd even see that. The reason I believe that is likely to be the case is that I don't ever see it happening on my Guardian in my normal set group, even on the same encounters Zhev is posting sections of the log for. I'm not sure *what* temp would cause it, but it would have to be something I don't normally get cast on me in groups. (So, possibly monk, temp, or conj at the least; Not sure who else is in Zhev's normal group)
In our normal setups the other class we have is swash, but given we get it still without the swash in the group I'd guess its not a swash ability. I would be hesitant to rule out other classes just cause another group hasn't seen it since because of AAs and play styles it is possible our mystic or bar is hitting something during those encounters that yours don't, but it is definitely strange. What's interesting is when I started log checking, my pally has only gotten fails due to timing being off, and I pug them with all kinds of classes - but I don't do challenge content on them which is where we are seeing the majority, though not all, of the bulwark fails(and I think that's just cause we encounter more bulwarks on challenge mobs)
I get this often on my monk. I also have the other issue you noted where it will fail, light up right away, fail again, then take on the third attempt. Then there is the case where I will cast Silent Threat, my spell bar (all of my combat arts including Silent Threat) light up (un-grays) and when I press it, I get a message saying "Recovering" or something like that (in my logs it says, "You are still recovering from your last art!").
Hmm, can/do procs count as being in recovery from a spell/art cast? I noticed that right after Anguish I got a message telling me that I am still recovering.
Bulwark is a lot more reliable since the changes, a lot more, so whatever changes you made have had a significantly positive effect on gameplay. However, I'm sorry to say that despite being very much improved, it still doesn't work as intended. In the example below we will pick a dashingly handsome young gentleman with immense modesty who plays a paladin as he likes to do things the hard way and unfortunately isnt sensible enough to play a different tank class. Our young hero is valiantly holding the attention of a named monster when he sees a message in chat that the dastardly fiend is about to unleash a barrage of attacks, so he hits bulwark, it greys as though casting, so he forgets it and moves on to put a blocker up and hit a taunt; but as well as being dashingly handsome, he is also a conscientious tank so he double checks and notices bulwark is lit again as it failed to cast. As well as being a young gentleman, he is also nimble, so he quickly clicks it again knowing that everything should be ok and still have time for it go through and land. It greys out again, so this time as he already has a blocker up, our intrepid hero smiles to himself and hits a dps button as he simultaneously checks the position of himself, the mob and the rest of the raid, before moving on to cast yet more wondrous spells and combat arts ... however not just being modest, but also being a thoroughly nice guy who wants to make things easier for everyone he decides to triple check that pesky bulwark and sees that yet again it has lit back up and failed to cast. Now he is in trouble as time is most definitely not on his side. He cancels whatever he was was casting, stands rock still and focusses entirely and solely upon that bulwark button as he presses it again ... holding his breath, thinking "Please land or I have wiped the raid and will incur the wrath of my ferocious raid leader as 24 dedicated raiders tumble to the floor in the agony of undeserved death". Sadly no, it greys out as though casting again, but again it lights back up as it failed, he hits that unreliable button yet one more time and as it starts to grey out ... the screaming begins and death arrives.
Bulwark has to be the most consistently broken spell for the tanks. It does not seem to matter if it's heroic, expert, challenge, or raid. There are times in raid where we have seen 3 separate tanks in 3 different groups all apply bulwark, and every single one of them failed. There have been times where anything that resets the tank will interfere with the recovery time between spells and render a bulwark invalid, even though it was cast at the appropriate time. There have been times where, it was cast, and just didn't apply at all. And then of course, human error, which we are not talking about as a problem here, since it's technically not a digital problem.
Bulwark is still a lottery with whether it wants to work sometimes or not. So many times, you click the item, you see the icon being pressed in and you hear the sound and then you look again and the effect has not gone through. It also has the tendency to let barrage hit if its in the last 1-3 seconds. I personally think that this mechanically is just a lazy mechanic there to keep the tanks relevant but there are a bazillion other ways that can be achieved. This is not at all a challenge part of tanking or to benchmark a tank's ability to mitigate the incoming damage but rather a futile exercise in frustration. The penalty in challenge zones (raid specifically) of 10 secs raid wide stun is just laughable at how unpredictable bulwark can be. This effect needs to be scrapped pure and simple and the tanking mechanic needs to be looked at in great detail which we have been asking for years now.
They've already made clear they won't be removing bulwark. As for it not casting when you push the button, that's because you're in recovery, 99.999% of the time. Either don't touch anything for 0.5s and THEN hit bulwark, or cast a long cast and cast bulwark WHILE it is casting; this was also the best method BEFORE the current iteration of bulwark. The fact that it isn't guaranteed to last through the entirety of the damage portion of the spell if you hit it as soon as the message pops is crappy, but you should be waiting 2-3s or watching til the cast bar is ~halfway or further in heroics.
While they won't remove it, hopefully they will tie it to something tanks are already doing so its just "is the tank active?" kind of check. Won't see what's done till next expansion though.
Bug fix for this is going in tomorrow (9/14). It was an issue with the protection falling off at 8 seconds every time (base duration), regardless of any beneficial spell duration buffs.
If it was falling off at 8 seconds, then we still in theory should not been getting the fail effect at 7 seconds? So will the patch tomorrow actual fix that problem too, or only cases where people were getting the fail effect after 8 seconds?
It's difficult to say with logs not showing milliseconds. In either case, yes, the fix should prevent that issue.
I have seen bulwarks just complete fail. The other day in Vasty Deep [Heroic II] I was on the last boss. Clicked bulwark, it went on cool down and 2 second later the whole group just went boom.
The issue that is being corrected with the update is specifically for an issue where Bulwark provides protection for it's original duration, and that duration could expire before a modified bulwark duration. Now, the Bulwark flag will persist for as long as the spell does. We have not been able to reproduce any issue where Bulwark fails to apply it's protection, or the protection ends before the original duration of the spell. If anyone has reproduction steps for the protection ending before the original 8 second duration, or not applying at all, then please let us know.
Well then I guess we will wait and see. Still no clue how to reproduce it other than fight the mob long enough to have enough bulwarks where one doesn't work right lol. I can continue providing the same logs every time it happens, but that's about all I can do. I've been trying to find some semblance of a pattern to it, and I can't, beyond us noticing it more on challenge content(but I think thats just cause we encounter more barrages on challenge content).
Would you be able to go through logs and verify when bulwark landed compared to when you got hit with the fail affect. (See the log lines I used). This verifies if its a timing issue or more of the bug my group is encountering.
Bulwark did not expire early last night so looks like the patch has made it a little better again. Improvement should always be lauded, so well done .
