Noob question

[Grumper]

Heya all,
New to maintankadin and very much a noob tank, but to be honest, so far I am really enjoying it. I want to get better, but I have a very basic question What is the difference really in Divine protection and Divine Shield...Should I always be using divine Shield? I would really like a basic run down of these two skills and how/when I should be using them.

Thanks a ton!

[Tiluvar]

Divine Shield is complete damage immunity, and will cause mobs to ignore you as long as it is active. It should only be used when you do not need to worry about holding the mobs attention, or cast and then immediately removed in order to remove fear or another debuff that can't be removed through normal means.

Divine Protection is 50% damage reduction, and will not cause you to lose aggro. You can use this one whenever you're about to take a lot of damage, or when you're low on health and your healers are otherwise occupied.

It can get a little more in depth as Divine Shield has a lot of clever uses for various encounters allowing Paladins to solo tank things that other tanks can't, but those are the basics.

[Arcand]

Divine Shield is complete damage immunity, and will cause mobs to ignore you as long as it is active.

I'm going to nitpick, because every so often this fact is actually useful:
Divine Shield is complete damage immunity, and will cause mobs to ignore you if they have anyone else to attack. If they don't, they'll stay aggroed on you.

This matters because you can pull casters by popping Divine Shield as long as they have nobody else on their threat table. Their decision tree goes like this:

* Do I have a spell that will damage the target? If so, cast it.
* If not, do I have a summon ability? If so, use it.
* If not, run to the target and melee it.
* Reconsider tactics in a few seconds.

The trick with this, of course, is to get your group to stay completely off the bad guys' threat tables until Divine Shield falls off. Many WoW players just don't have that kind of discipline and/or understanding of game mechanics.

[Grumper]

Awesome! perfect explanation! thanks a ton!

[greatcow95]

The trick with this, of course, is to get your group to stay completely off the bad guys' threat tables until Divine Shield falls off. Many WoW players just don't have that kind of discipline and/or understanding of game mechanics.

Or you get healed during that time...le sigh

[nalenb]

I've been tanking for a few months now (just started WoW) and have almost never used either one. I consider them a panic button. I've been tanking all the heroics except HoR pretty well now and have never had a use for either. I suspect they are more useful in the harder raids, but right now heroics are pretty easy if I have a decent group and I'm paying attention. It also seems to me that you'd have to communicate with your healer when you do either one, and since the pug's I run with are so quick there isn't time to type.

I've even tried the divine sacrifice/divine guardian trick a few times on bosses, but the healer can't even tell.

[Shyrtandros]

It is correct in assuming that as a heroic / 5 man runner both of these options have a very very slim use to them.

However you will want to learn 1 key trick if you wish to advance which is that if you bubble and then dispell the bubble by right clicking it (or rolling it into a very clever macro) you can get rid of any major debuff that could be a huge threat to you.

IE. 30 second Dot that does 6k dmg to you per tick... Bubble, then immediately dispell. Word of caution - for the duration of the bubble you risk killing teamates if they aren't prepared or your not skilled enough to manipulate this.

Food for thought young padawon!

[Playdoh]

I <3 divine protection!!!.

If i see spike dmg on myself i cycle through my trinkets and then use divine protection.

It's an ability use it. with a 2 min cd it's not even that long of a cd that it matters.