Loading ...The Holy Grail: A Use for Rend
I had traveled through the corridors of Karazhan, the jungles of Zul’Aman, into the lair of Gruul, checked out the cellar of Magtheridon, ventured through the caverns of Serpentshrine, into the keep of Kael’thas and yet never found it. I scoured the mounts of Hyjal and demanded it of Archimonde himself to no avail. I walked the deepest, darkest Temple and still nothing.
Then finally, lost in confusion, delusion and rage, I forced my will upon my enemy even as my companions sought to prevent that very act and in doing so found my relic… found my Grail.
So, What’s the Point of Rend?
The most worthless tanking talent in the game, Rend, I’ve finally found one very small, obscure use for. It’s great for breaking sheeps, shackles, sleeps and seduces. Almost any form of CC that can be reapplied when you don’t want it to, it’s awesome for. Shield Slam, Rend and move… and no matter what they do, it follows.
Hilarious? Ridiculous? Laughable? Logical?
Call it what you want, it’s the only tanking use for Rend. The Holy Grail has been found.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Hey, I was using it to put blood frenzy up on stuff that I didn’t want to melee for long as arms! Kept it up on Telonicus so the hunters could pewpew when we got some alts rings!
[Reply]
August 21st, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Thanks for the warlock tip. I’ll be increasing my dps by dotting shackles. Using the excuse that I “thought the tank was ready to pick up the target, so I popped a destruction potion and lit up the shackle.”
[Reply]
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:27 am
I used to rend Onyxia in phase 2, hoping it would tick as she was landing in phase 3 and she would immediately run to me. I do the same thing with Illidan in phase 3/4/5 during transitions, Zul’jin as well during transitions, although lately I haven’t felt the need to waste the rage. An appropriately timed devastate/HS/shield slam does a better job of getting threat. Aside from that, eh. I like your idea of breaking cc with it. Something to think about…
Tav
[Reply]
Kavtor reply on August 22, 2008 8:28 am:
I never thought of that. I used to rend Onyxia all the time, but never bothered to rend Illidan. At that point, he’s got dots on him anyway, so mine wouldn’t help. Probably better off unloading regular threat moves on him as he comes out.
[Reply]
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:11 am
Testing this would require finding a place for Rend on my action bar. I am not sure I will have enough energy for this.
[Reply]
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:10 am
This is ridiculous information. Vene, you’ve lost it.
[Reply]
Veneretio reply on August 22, 2008 6:26 am:
What can I say? I got tired of targets being re-shackled in Hyjal when I was trying to get them into the AOE group
[Reply]
Kavtor reply on August 22, 2008 8:36 am:
Hah. I have definately been there, yelling “stop shackling my damn mob!”
Now we don’t bother with CC, except for the odd huge Necro pull, and the bored priests mind controlling.
[Reply]
Siouxzen reply on August 22, 2008 10:24 am:
Vene does yell that… which explains why we keep reshackling!
Dezdemone reply on August 29, 2008 7:19 am:
Heh, my father plays a sheep happy mage (no I am not a child he’s just old LOL) It always ticks me off when he wont stop sheeping, so I always just concussion blowed the kill target then TC and start hitting the one I don’t want CC’d. Rend is quite a bit easier though… heh, good thing I don’t live with him anymore or there’d be hell to pay!
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:58 am
Rend is the only threat-over-time ability we have am I right? So it’s alright to use on fights where you won’t be in the mob’s face the whole time. Bosses/mobs with aggro wipes on phase transitions or deadly whirlwinds (without maximum debuffs on it already) are a good example.
It’s even useful to use on mobs you want to tag for aggro that aren’t being dps’d on. Though adding one shield slam would be great, to be safe.
I use it on Supremus all the time, though sometimes as a joke. I always put it up on him and say “rend is up guys, time for leet damage”. Though I find iit is sort of useful; usually only half the raid is alive by the end of the fight, maximum debuffs aren’t up, and he’s moving around enough so that I’m not within tanking range 100 percent of the time. Damage is damage?
[Reply]
Veneretio reply on August 22, 2008 7:07 am:
Devastate for virtually the same cost does more threat and does it instantly rather than over 21 seconds. I’ve used it on bosses with aggro wipes, but the amounts of threat a tick does is so little that it’s beyond laughable. I’m not joking when I say that this post is literally the only practical use it has for a tank.
[Reply]
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:16 am
At first, I thought you were talking about Rend and how it gonna be more useful in WotLK.
[Reply]
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:35 am
I’m pretty sure you’ve found that Grail.
Blizzard has already begun correcting that mistake to stop you:
Glyph of Polymorph 01 (Mage): Your Polymorph spell also removes all damage over time effects from the target.
[Reply]
admin reply on August 22, 2008 10:58 am:
Alas, the search for the Grail will continue again in the Expansion then!
[Reply]
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:08 am
I only use rend for pvp and soloing.
I would like to think that rend will be of more use in wrath, since a lot of talents affect bleed effects…
[Reply]
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:23 am
I like that-Rend to keep the mobs from being re-CC’d.
But really, Rend is great for the one Arms warrior in the raid to keep up Blood Frenzy, too. Having that arms warrior use Rend off the bat to keep up Blood Frenzy=more threat/hit for you as the tank.
[Reply]
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:07 am
Its great for keeping non-dwarf rogues out of stealth.
[Reply]
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:08 am
Glyph of Polymorph 01 (Mage): Your Polymorph spell also removes all damage over time effects from the target.
haha this holy grail is only useful until WoTLK. this is a new inscription recipie. i got it from world of raids. you can check out all the new glyphs for hunter mage and rogue.
no warriors ones yet
[Reply]
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:29 am
You guys, I’m pretty sure Veneretio is discussing the uses of Rend for a warrior tank rather than a dps or pvp warrior.
Though just to chime in, rending isn’t even useful for a dps warrior. Crits are very reliable at keeping blood frenzy up all, if not, nearly all the time. Rend would be a waste of rage and a waste of a spot in your dps rotation.
Using rend to prevent CC really sounds like the most practical use of this ability. It’s also good for major lulz?
[Reply]
Kavtor reply on August 22, 2008 9:36 am:
Rend is good for a DPS warrior if you want to put BF on the mob, while minimizing your time in range of it, and not needing to rely on crits.
That said, in PVE, I cast it out of my spell book.
There’s only so much you can discuss about rend for PVE, so we’ve got to reach into PVP =P
Good for keeping NE’s from vanishing a little longer if you’re worried that they’re going to run away and try to drink, and you can’t sit on them for ten more seconds!
[Reply]
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:46 am
Leotheras, assuming you’re telling people to let dots fall off after whirlwind.
[Reply]
admin reply on August 22, 2008 11:00 am:
That was my first attempt at finding the Grail, but alas I found that it simply didn’t generate enough threat to overcome even the smallest of DoTs. (thank goodness for Searing Totems!)
[Reply]
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Well, rend is getting some attention on beta now, but I previously found one use for it: on the guards of Sartura in AQ. They periodically wiped their treat charts, so I’d try to keep a dot on them to pull them back if I got kb’ed at a bad time. Required your team not to competitively dot though…
[Reply]
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I always thought rend was used to prevent other raid members from putting their debuffs on the bosses. Generates a lot of aggro - from the rest of the raid
Now if we could only rend ourselves to break CC…
[Reply]
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:45 pm
While I was tanking heroic Botanica, somebody pointed out I could rend the fire boss so that he goes straight to me after his aggro reset. Sure enough it works. I haven’t found another place where it does. If it lasted long enough to pick up Nightbane that would be something. Mostly I use the Rend spell to displace the Disarm spell from my action bar.
[Reply]
sanelora reply on August 24, 2008 7:32 am:
uh.. disarm is better than rend :p
especially on M’uru
[Reply]
Machus reply on August 24, 2008 6:21 pm:
I also use Disarm to displace Rend sometimes. I’m sure with WLK we’ll get many abilities that we can use to remove other abilities from our action bars, since we’re not getting any new fingers
[Reply]
Talisman reply on August 24, 2008 10:58 pm:
I’m looking into bindable foot pedals
August 25th, 2008 at 7:13 am
If only Rend could prevent ‘Locks from chain banishing when you least need it….
[Reply]
August 29th, 2008 at 3:11 am
I have been thinking about the threat capabilities of rend. My initial thought was to include it in my regular rotation, so that instead of:
(Dev Dev SS Rev) Repeat [6 second cycle]
I would have something like:
((Dev Rend SS Rev) (Dev Dev SS Rev) x 3) Repeat [24 second cycle]
That is, replace one Devastate with a Rend in every 4th cycle since Rend is a 21 second debuff. So, is the alternative more efficient? Short answer: No. I did all the calculations with different values for boss armor, weapon damage and attack power. The result was that only if the boss has extremely high armor (10000+, keep in mind, Rend is not affected by armor), is debuffed with Mangle and the warrior is specced with Improved Rend, you would see a slight threat increase by including Rend in your rotation.
[Reply]
August 31st, 2008 at 8:25 pm
And what about Slam? xD
[Reply]