Divinity for Hard Modes?

[Blondebunny]

I know there is another thread on this, but the thing the other thread lacks is talking about divinity for hard modes exclusively. I have three floater talents, and I choose to put them in Divine Sacrifice.
However, I've faced criticism from some that say that Divine Sacrifice AND Divinity is great for hard modes.

Currently, I have a spec that I've seen most raiding tankadins use. It's the usual prot/ret spec that goes into crusade since crusade is hands-down best threat. It has been said that "You don't need crusade if you have enough threat" and I know that tankadins are good threat, but is it worth it?

Some on this board have said, "Oh, Divinity isn't that good if your healers are keeping up" but there is an argument that especially in hard modes, where a healer can get MC'd or Bone Spiked, or have to heal someone with mark that Divinity is pretty much a necessary talent for a protection paladin.

So, should divinity be taken when dealing with hard modes? How good is it really? 5% of 10k healing is only 500, but if heals are doing ~8k heals per second, then that is 400 extra healing per second. That could really be a difference between life and death in a raid situation.

So, is divinity and divine sacrifice worth taking points out of retribution and redistributing them?

[Fridmarr]

The weakness of divinity is that it mostly results in overhealing, just due to the way healers overheal in current gameplay. The way damage intake is in ICC, faster smaller hits, less avoidance, it does seem to be a little stronger than in previous tiers. It could help you, and it really won't hurt you, but I wouldn't call it a required talent by any means. I don't think you'll get a clear cut answer since you are comparing threat to survivability which is going to be a subjective comparison.

[theckhd]

It really depends on whether you're dying, I think.

If I found that I was frequently dying to trickle-down deaths and causing wipes, then I'd be much more inclined to spec Divinity. But so far in ICC, the tank checks haven't been as punishing. I can't speak to 25-man hard modes, but I've yet to have a serious survivability problem in 10-man hard modes. LK might be a different story, and there's certainly an argument for speccing Divinity for that encounter.

I think that DS/DG is generally better than Divinity, as a 20% raidwall makes some fights significantly easier, and given the choice between 3% extra healing received and a free 20% cooldown, I'll take the cooldown.

In any event, it's a survivability vs. threat/dps question. You're trading ~250 DPS / ~600 TPS for a little more survivability. Most of us don't even think twice about trading threat for survivability, but in this case the gain is really lopsided because Divinity is weak per talent point (compared to our other options), and Crusade is very strong per talent point (compared to Reckoning, Conviction, etc).

[Awyndel]

Well if the costs wouldn't be so relatively high I wouldn't have to think twice and spec it right now. Let's hope cataclysm erases this last dilemma in our spec choices .

[Boyfriend]

I would hope something terribly boring like Crusade or Divinity would be gone from Cataclysm Talent trees.

[Folstar]

I think that DS/DG is generally better than Divinity, as a 20% raidwall makes some fights significantly easier, and given the choice between 3% extra healing received and a free 20% cooldown, I'll take the cooldown.

...Divinity is weak per talent point (compared to our other options)...

^seconded

[Blondebunny]

Well, I had a discussion with my guild a bit earlier. It boiled down to this:

"Do you have issues with threat?"
Me: "Not after the first few seconds if hunters don't blow their loads on new spawns in boss fights"
"Then why not spec into a talent that gives you a boost to heals taken that may help save a dps if a healer has to choose between you and them?"

Well, put that way, it seems like Divinity is good. I'm like, "3%?! MEH!" However, if I'm not missing anything by speccing out of vindication and crusade besides excess threat I don't need, is it really that bad? Even 5% does seem to me like REALLY weak when concerning talent points, but I guess it can at times mean the difference, especially when we're talking about hard modes. I'm going to give it a try. If my threat isn't really bad, maybe it's worth keeping. I'm skeptical about taking 5/5 Divinity, as I trust you guys, and I like my threat, but we shall see.

[Fridmarr]

Well, I had a discussion with my guild a bit earlier. It boiled down to this:

"Do you have issues with threat?"
Me: "Not after the first few seconds if hunters don't blow their loads on new spawns in boss fights"
"Then why not spec into a talent that gives you a boost to heals taken that may help save a dps if a healer has to choose between you and them?"

Well, put that way, it seems like Divinity is good. I'm like, "3%?! MEH!" However, if I'm not missing anything by speccing out of vindication and crusade besides excess threat I don't need, is it really that bad? Even 5% does seem to me like REALLY weak when concerning talent points, but I guess it can at times mean the difference, especially when we're talking about hard modes. I'm going to give it a try. If my threat isn't really bad, maybe it's worth keeping. I'm skeptical about taking 5/5 Divinity, as I trust you guys, and I like my threat, but we shall see.

Vindication gives you much more survivability than Divinity would.

[Blondebunny]

Vindication gives you much more survivability than Divinity would.

We have another pally tank with vindication, as well as a warrior who can spam demo shout. Since there are other players who have this utility, having me speccing into vindication would just be wasted points. I have also heard that ret pallies should spec into vindication since they are always on the boss. I don't play ret for pve, so I don't know how true that is, but since we have several classes and players who have the same utility as vindication, I have specced out of it.

[Boyfriend]

Vindication gives you much more survivability than Divinity would.

We have another pally tank with vindication, as well as a warrior who can spam demo shout. Since there are other players who have this utility, having me speccing into vindication would just be wasted points. I have also heard that ret pallies should spec into vindication since they are always on the boss. I don't play ret for pve, so I don't know how true that is, but since we have several classes and players who have the same utility as vindication, I have specced out of it.

I think it's more likely for vindication to save your ass.

Your other pally tanks vindication might fall off, your warrior might be mentally absent and forget to put up demo and your ret pally might be dead on the floor, now your vindication could save you.

Yes that's unlikely.

But I think it's more likely than that Divinity will save you.

[Blondebunny]

I did the first three bosses in ICC10 hard mode last night, and as expected, there was no problem with threat. Deathwhisper had a bit of problems, but that was due to overzealous dps not switching to add when their threat got too high. Divinity did seem to make it a bit easier for healers to top me off when they got behind due to repositioning or whatnot, so it wasn't too bad.
I am thinking of just leaving 3/5 divinity and going back into Vindication as our raid setup did not have an attack power debuff. This is not the norm as we usually run with another player with the AP debuff. However, for instances like this, I do think that vindication is worth more than 2 points in divinity, as stated in the previous post.

Yes, unlikely that all three of the other people with AP debuffs would not have it up, but also vindication is too good NOT to have when the raid composition does not have a person with the AP debuff.

[Awyndel]

Please keep in mind you need 2 paladins doing vindication to actually get the 99% uptime a demo shout will have. Keep this in mind when your other tanks are on different targets, dead, or not attending.

As for the threat issue. Yes we have plenty of threat, but this is also about dps. And it's just not a cheap trade in the end. And if we would be making more bad trades like that we would not have plenty of threat. In the end it's your own preference I guess.

If you want to pick up divinity you should drop crusade for it, and maybe touched by light, since those are the only pure threat talents you can drop for it.

[SaintSin]

Well it happened. I was removed from a 10man ICC PUG because (and the Raid Leader specifically said this)--> I was not spec'd into Divinity. His words were Divinty = Required.

We cleared most of the trash up to Marrowgar with no tanking issues at all. After being kicked, he spent the next 10mins or so in trade chat looking for a tank, so it wasn't like he had a guildie he wanted to bring in & was looking for an excuse to kick me.

But enough QQ. I take my spec seriously so came to see if I have been missing something on Divinity in some recent or not-so-recent change. The debate over Divinity is amazingly balanced. Those that say to take it, primarily justify it by saying, "its better than picking up more threat".

So here's my question: Does anyone take this Tier 1 talent so seriously that they'd exclude someone from a raid -- and to keep on topic, is this going to be a requirement for Hard Modes?

Its just that I remember this same discussion not that long ago in regards to avoidance. I had to quit my avoidance strategy because too may people were just looking at HP numbers (avoidance being not so readily apparent to the casual observer).

[Fridmarr]

Being kicked from a raid for it is really stupid, especially a regular 10 man. I doubt Divinity will be a required heroic raid talent, but that doesn't mean that there won't be fights where tank deaths are a problem, and it's worth sacrificing almost anything for more survivability.

[fuzzygeek]

We cleared most of the trash up to Marrowgar with no tanking issues at all. After being kicked, he spent the next 10mins or so in trade chat looking for a tank, so it wasn't like he had a guildie he wanted to bring in & was looking for an excuse to kick me.

I'd be curious to know at what point that pug failed, because the leader is an idiot.