After a long hiatus i'm starting to move more into tanking. Coming from a holy spec I've become quite neurotic about having Sacred Shield up on my healing targets at all time. This has lead to some annoyance when I see Ret and Prot paladins not using it. To help remedy this (and to help remedy my lower than desired average gear level) I refresh my shield every three to four rotations.
My question is: Are there paladin tanks that refresh their Sacred Shield at some infrequent point in their rotation or is it just a waste of time and mana?
Well I guess any damage reduction of any kind is never a waste of mana. If you are running with a holy pally you will get the hot they put on you too.Originally Posted by anonymousRex
I try and keep it up, but never before devine plea and holy shield thou, if the DPS are close on a gimmick fight I use higher threat moves.
I guess if this put your mind at ease and you have no mana issues then keep it up or tell your holy/ret to keep it on you.
I try to keep it up where I can but I generally find that my rotation tends to take priority after a while. I cast it every 30 seconds without fail on a "whoops, tank's dead" type fight but I must admit that I use it somewhat infrequently otherwise. Usually it's a case of having had a Holy Paladin around with my for most of the raids I'm in so I'm not used to it.
ZOMGBuffs shouts at me if it drops off though, so that helps a bit.
I keep it up when I can, but the tank rotation does take priority. In a single boss fight, or when I *KNOW* I have enough threat on multiple targets, I'll use it in place of consecrate when it's on close to falling off.
Even when I ask the Prot and Ret pallies to keep it up they forget. You don't need to worry about it though, 3.3 changes will make SS obsolete for any spec but Holy.
[ vine's TankUI & HealUI ] *UPDATED*
As a prot pally, I try and keep it up, but I notice it sometimes lapses abit. You have to give up something in 969 to refresh it.
As for holy paladins, if a holy pally is on me as MT, then clearly, his/her SS is of more importance than mine, but then I in turn SS somebody ELSE (generally, my OT unless s/he is a pally themselves, at which point I pick a top melee DPS).
If you have a holy paladin on you, don't use sacred shield because it'll overwrite theirs, which is better. Otherwise, I try to fit in a sacred shield later in the rotation when I have enough threat and don't need to consecrate as much. If I'm pulling the mob first, I'll also try to put up a SS before the pull if I remember. I definitely don't have very good uptime on it though.
Not necessarily. Holy Paladins can be split between the bread and butter build (51/x/20-x) or the raid utility build which you might be thinking (51/20-x/x) or some unknown unique build no-one has seen. The only difference is the duration and amount absorbed.
Sacred Shield is a great shock absorber for mitigating the amount of a minor heal over a period of 30-60 seconds. The HoT is just a bonus if you got a paladin healer in the mix.
Trying to fit in Sacred Shield whilst tanking is tricky with a 969 rotation. If your threat management wasn't good to start with and your screw the tempo with a SS in the mix, you might find that one lapse can mean having a stack of mobs on you and having them on top of you because everyone else is dead.
Otherwise, SS in one occasional rotation wouldn't hurt ya as much as you think.
Healing is the source of life. Without it, you're left with death.
Sacred Shield absorbs (0.75*SP+500) damage without any points in Divine Guardian. Whoever has the highest spellpower should be using SS on the MT.
[ vine's TankUI & HealUI ] *UPDATED*
As everyone has said most tanking these days survival isnt an issue and your healers arent running out of mana you wont find me using it as it costs threat.
For the same reasons most of my tanking is done with Libram of Valiance - Item - World of Warcraft.
Some doing hardmode stuff may use it but for all your normal tanking give the healers something to do.
Seriously with the state of the game right now before new patch you rarely see a tank get splattered most have geared up as OT's or got offspec rolls and outgear stuff before they ever get to tank it. Hell it's hard to get a pug without first having the achievement.
As said it all changes after the patch so not worth worrying about.
** Remember Warcraft players fail in directions you never thought possible.
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