Shields devalued by devs

[Sylve]

Shields work, but you have to apply them before the add phase ends. I'm assuming this is a bug more so than an intentional feature

Doubt its a bug.
More likely due to the way Animations work. Its very likely that the Ultimate attack is triggered the instant the adds die. But it has an insanely long animation, and damage is applied at the END of animations, the problem is more likely that he is applying shields after the game actually applies the damage to you.
Same thing happens all the time with Tank Busters and Adloq.
If the cast bar finishes before Adloq lands, the animation will play out and the damage is applied … seemingly ignoring the Galvanise, but that's because the Tank already got hit by the Tank Buster before Adloq took effect, it just didn't 'apply' the damage until the animation said it should.

This is something we learned, as a community, a very long time ago ...

[Sebazy]

Just to confirm. The damage on innocence’s transition does indeed snapshot right as the last add dies. As a WHM hitting wings and benison on someone with vuln stacks before that add dies will usually get them through with the shield getting eaten in the process.

[Nimloth]

Yeah, it might be intended that way. However, it is a bit unusual for the way most of the fights work in the game. Snapping shotting is something I'm super familiar with, I've been raiding since 2.0. However, there is usually an opportunity to apply shields, defensive buffs, etc... after add phase, such as during Sephirot for example. That's why I was leaning towards it being more of a bug than something intentional

[HyperiusUltima]

I would think they would not deviate from the formula like that Sebazy. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.

[Schan]

Dear SE design team,
Last week I cleared The Crown of Immaculate Extreme and was surprised to notice that healer shields do not work on the boss ultimate attack after killing ads. My question is - WHY?
Why you keep doing this for some fights, and why is it becoming a norm? There are other ways to make fight more punishing, rather than making people with 2 vulnstacks die to an ultimate attack that cannot be shielded. Maybe remove them shields altogether then, since it is clear that you want healer to just spam "1" reducing value of their healing toolkit to by making design decisions like these.
Best Regards, Aluvian Darkstar@Twintania

that boss is what I call the "king of snapping". you will notice it's not just his ultimate that does that. So basically for shields to be affected you need to have the shields on your party before the last add dies. He snaps your party when the add dies. if you apply shields after the add dies, the ultimate will ignore the shields.

Same thing applies to the dashy move he does which has distance damage. He snaps where you are long before he finishes the cast so if you move out of the way at the last second, it's far too late for you to save yourself.

[Nethereal]

There's a certain point where you need to use shields or it will miss the tic and it won't work. That's all.