Anecdote: A couple of years ago, The Kid and I were at Toys R Us, shopping for a gift for my nephew’s first birthday. The Kid’s a teenager now, and so the demands to visit the toy department were long ago replaced by demands to go to the video game store. But no matter your age, toy stores are incredibly fun, and I confess, I squealed with delight when I saw a display full of foam shields and swords. “Oh my god, I’m buying us these,” I said. “Oh my god, no,” he said, and blushed with embarrassment as I grabbed one and proceeded to poke him in the belly. I don’t remember what we bought my nephew that day, but The Kid and I came home with Nerf weapons. He had a long sword; I had a dagger and a shield. We ran around the backyard dueling, and I quickly learned several things:
- Laughing hysterically makes swordplay nearly impossible.
- It’s hard to get up in someone’s grill to whack them with a dagger if they’ve got longer arms and a long sword and a much longer reach.
- Foam shields don’t do shit.
Analysis: Foam shields don’t do shit.
I feel like a broken record in raids sometimes: “Please don’t shield the tanks.” “Please don’t shield the tanks.” “Please don’t shield the tanks.” “Please don’t shield the tanks.” I’ve long struggled to get my fellow priests to cease-and-desist, but with the priests’ 4-piece bonus now offering +250 spellpower for 5 seconds after shielding, it’s even more of a battle.
Hey, Holy Priests: if you raid with a Discipline Priest, don’t shield, ok? Please? If you have the 4-piece bonus and want to take advantage of the spellpower boost, shield yourself. Your job as a Holy Priest is to heal, not to shield. While the boost to your throughput is nice, I agree, the bonus wasn’t designed for you (I know. Startling concept: a poorly designed set bonus.) PW:S hasn’t been part of your rotation, and this set bonus shouldn’t change things. It’s not what you should be using your GCDs or mana (~900 mana for you, and I know you don’t have much to spare) to cast.
I had several shields last night absorb 10K damage; most of the time, they absorb at least 8K. A Holy Priest’s shield absorbs less than half that.
And that’s not remotely strong enough to absorb my fury when I see your Weakened Soul debuff on the tanks.
In principal, I wouldn’t have a problem with holy priests casting the occasional shield, on themselves or someone in danger of dying. In practice there’s the opposite problem in my guild, that holy priests forget they have a shield spell. (It’s why I’m the Disc priest: does no one else appreciate the power of in instant cast 8k heal that can’t overheal?)
However if holy priests are managing to shield the tanks you’re watching, who presumably you would be shielding every 15.5 seconds, then that would get kind of obnoxious really fast. Hopefully their actions are just out of ignorance instead of selfishness!
One holy priest I run with took to outright hostility when I asked her not to shield the tank. And neither of us have the 4-pc bonus; it was just a “DON’T TELL ME HOW TO HEAL” moment.
I guess people don’t realize there’s a difference between solo work and teamwork… Not that she’s supposed to know that I get haste AND crit AND mana from shields, or that mine are so much stronger. But when told, you’d think — since we’re on the same team, trying to interweave our strengths to accomplish a single goal — that we’d find ways to work together, no?
I hope you mentioned that just because you have a set bonus for PoH doesn’t mean you’ll be spamming it 🙂
Don’t Holy get some awesome talent at the top of their tree that means their shields grant 60% faster run speed or something? Maybe they were thinking the tank needed that?!? 🙂
I’m sure I read somewhere (one of the ElitestJerks healing compendiums?) where a couple of people were arguing that this speed buff made it worth while casting Holy shields on people in Uldar. I’m not conviinced yet.
So I’m with you Khaeli. I haven’t seen a good argument yet why Holy priests would be casting shields, except maybe on themselves, when there is a Disc priest in the raid. Perhaps if the Disc was assigned to raid heal and the Holy MT heal, but then i’d be kicking the healing lead (myself) for sub-par healing assignments.
Gobble gobble.
Body and Soul (the talent you’re thinking of) is actually near the *bottom* of their tree.
Also, thanks for this blog post- I’m the only Disc Priest in my guild (currently) and it drives me nuts when one of the Holy Priests starts shielding the tanks. :S
If this happens in a 10-man, just shield everyone at all times, so the holy priest can’t get their bonus, ever. Now who’s laughing?
cool where did you get the shields? (toys r us)?
I am looking for adult size nerf sheilds for the big nerf sword. I have not had any luck finding them. So if anyone know were I can get one or 4 I appreciate it