Comments on: Don’t Poke Fun at Thorns (They Hurt)

By: Facing the Lich King « The Starleaf Seed

Facing the Lich King « The Starleaf Seed — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:37:25 +0000

[...] is a Thorn in my side. It’s just not a talent I particularly like or desire. Despite Phaelia’s write up on Brambles (which honest has made me more vigilant in maintaining Thorns on my Tanks ever since reading it), [...]

By: Phaelia

Phaelia — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:58:49 +0000

@Erdluf: YIKES … that really, really sucks. I wonder if it was an intentional change.

By: Erdluf

Erdluf — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:49:48 +0000

Spreading the word. Brambles won’t help tank threat, unless the tank has Brambles.

The thorns you cast on others don’t benefit from Brambles.

Test results at http://elitistjerks.com/1079130-post269.html

I first noticed this when my guild was doing a raid on the Horde leaders. I was 75 at the time so my DPS wasn’t too good, but I was hoping to brag on the amount of damage my Thorns added to the raid. I was dissapointed when I looked at the WWS and it was obvious that I was the only one benefitting from Brambles.

It was fun to see that the first Thorns entry in my combat log was 3 damage, done by a Tauren to a mob outside of Ogrimmar

By: FREE WoW Guides - World of Warcraft Guides, Exploits, Tricks, and Tips

FREE WoW Guides - World of Warcraft Guides, Exploits, Tricks, and Tips — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:38:07 +0000

[...] damage works out to around 200-300 a pop. But as Phaelia observed a while back on Resto4Life, Brambles isn’t actually half-bad for tanks in PvE encounters. Still, most people right now are complaining about the rather hideous [...]

By: Lady Jess.. » 2 vs 2 and Tree vs Tree

Lady Jess.. » 2 vs 2 and Tree vs Tree — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 02:25:44 +0000

[...] buff. I have the Brambles talent. It increases the damage done by thorns and roots by 75%, and don’t be laughing at that!:P So rogue #2 was already pretty low without ever being touched. So, when he focused on my I just [...]

By: Phaelia

Phaelia — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:20:13 +0000

@Shygar: That’s pretty cool for a spell you only have to cast once before the fight starts. And thank you for the tip about Stormstrike. I wasn’t familiar with that at all, but it’s great to be aware of it.

The only other case that I’m aware of where Thorns shouldn’t be used are on the Leotheras fight. Supposedly if your demon impales himself on a damage shield, you don’t get credit for having killed him and will end up mind controlled.

It’s not a bad idea to use Thorns on your whole group on fights with no aggro table (like the Priestess fight in MgT).

By: Shygar

Shygar — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:10:41 +0000

I’ve been playing around with 3/3 Brambles as a resto druid raiding Sunwell. I’m 14/0/47 right now (basically no HT talents and 4/5 subtlety). I’ve also gone back to get my 3 piece T1 bonus (4 dmg to thorns, increases duration by 50%). The 4 dmg is increased by 3/3 Brambles as well. This puts my thorns at 51 dmg and lasts 15 minutes.

Looking at a WWS log for M’uru last night, it seems that my thorns did almost 22k damage for the fight:

http://wowwebstats.com/lnp1icb3jeri5?s=2730-3130&ab=280

It could have done more but I was under the impression that ret aura and thorns did not stack so I did not cast it on our prot pally (there are 4 tanks for that fight). Since another poster here commented it does stack, I will have to experiment with that.

The biggest issue I am noticing now is that it seems that thorns damage will eat a charge of the enhancement shaman ability Stormstrike (20% bonus dmg from nature, 2 charges). That makes me think a tank tanking only one mob should never have thorns on if there is an enhancement shaman in the raid. Also more importantly, we raid with an enhancement and elemental shaman for every boss. The elemental shaman can make a huge DPS difference if he gets to use those stormstrike nature damage bonuses over thorns. However if a tank is tanking multiple mobs and threat on those mobs is an issue, the stormstrike will help hold threat even more. You will see from my WWS that my 51 pt thorns did 64 damage with stormstrike up.

Has anyone seen any other issues where thorns should not be used?

By: Will druids replace mages in Wrath of the Lich King | Yet Another Warlock Nerf

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:35:45 +0000

[...] around, but better than nothing. Casting Thorns is a waste of mana on anyone other than the tank – some druids are even crazy enough to spec into Brambles – those precious three talent points can be used much [...]

By: Phaelia

Phaelia — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 03:23:45 +0000

@Breanainn: Cool – any build I look at generally includes 3/3 Brambles. While it’s annoying to have to rebuff Thorns every 10 minutes, it’s gratifying to know that you’re being asked to do so because you’ve opted to maximize your buff for threat generation. Tanks get really attached to it. =)

By: Breanainn

Breanainn — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:33:53 +0000

Thanks for the article. I’ve had a few points in Brambles for some time now and I was just wondering today how much threat it generates. Basically a few months back I developed a spec that I’ve gotten comfortable with it’s 13/0/48. Basically I’ve taken all talents in the resto tree that will help me in tree form, and came to the conclusion that Improved Tranquility wasn’t of much use in raiding. In the end I had 13 talents to put where I saw fit. So because I do get bored and thus pvp some and I knew I liked casting moonfire (Improved Moonfire), Insect Swarm, cyclone(Control of Nature), and Nature’s Grasp (Improved). In the end I had 2 spare talents and I dumped them in Brambles. So there we are =)