Divine Sac. change nerf or buff?

[Kelios]

Paladin
Protection

Divine Guardian: This talent no longer increases the amount of damage transferred to the paladin from Divine Sacrifice. Instead it causes all raid and party members to take 10/20% reduced damage while Divine Sacrifice is active.
Divine Sacrifice: Redesigned. The effect of Divine Sacrifice is now party-only and the maximum damage which can be transferred is now limited to 40% of the paladin’s health multiplied by the number of party members. In addition, the damage transferred to the paladin is now reduced by 50% before being applied to the paladin. Finally, the bug which allowed Divine Sacrifice to sometimes persist despite reaching its maximum damage has been fixed. Divine Sacrifice will now cancel as soon as its maximum damage value is exceeded in all cases.

Since the bug is fixed where you can absorb raid damage more than 150% of your health when you're bubbled. The ability would only last a few seconds if you use it when there is a lot of raid damage. So the change allows the raid to still take less damage even more than your max health, which would seem to be a buff.

The wording is very tricky talking about the party damage being transferred and then reduced before it hits you, does anyone have an idea what it will mean? The way I understand it:
the 4 people in your party will transfer damage to you until 40% of your health has been reached. This would mean you are taking taking 160% health as damage (40% x 4 party members). But you only see 50% of that damage, so you will be hit for 80% of your health pool. Meaning we don't need to bubble when we use it???


How will the new divine sac be used in the party to get the max effect in raids?
I'm an engineer, and its hard to figure out...

[meroko]

You won't have to bubble it anymore, absorbs far less damage and is now party only, but in return won't kill you.

The 20% reduction to raid damage while active is nice but come 3.3 I think the only viable spec grabbing this would be prot. Holy it was nice but sacrificing that much health in any hard mode would be a huge mistake.

[blu]

You won't have to bubble it anymore, absorbs far less damage and is now party only, but in return won't kill you.

The 20% reduction to raid damage while active is nice but come 3.3 I think the only viable spec grabbing this would be prot. Holy it was nice but sacrificing that much health in any hard mode would be a huge mistake.

true it wont be as helpful to the ENTIRE raid as it is compared to now but it will still be worth grabing as holy Tbh i am still looking at the changes and i am really like'ing the looks of it except for the fact only helps your party, not raid wide anymore

edit: oops i missed the "Instead it causes all raid and party members to take 10/20% reduced damage while Divine Sacrifice is active."

[fyske]

The 20% damage reduction to the whole raid and party is a nice buff.

On the other hand, the way they redesigned the base ability sucks, at least from a PVP point of view since it was (again) one of the few things that would allows the Paladin to stay out of a Polymorph (or other kind of ccs) without having to blow Divine Shield..

[Raiss]

Huge nerf. It was overpowered, but encounters were designed according to it. I hope blizzard understands that insane amounts of raid dmg cannot be healed without raid-wide cooldowns.

[Iselian]

For protection, it might be paired with Divine Protection to only take up to 50% of your health. In addition to whatever you're tanking at the time. Divine Guardian now gives half the effectiveness of what the old DSac+DG gave, so that's just a straight nerf.

For protection it's viable but I'm giving some thought to 3/5 reckoning for filler points. Or 3/5 divinity, bad as it is.

For ret it's out the window. You'd have to be in the tank's group to make the best use of it, and frankly that goes against the anti-party-comp raid setup that Blizzard was going for. It seems.. well, stupid. My ret half is going to drop it entirely in favor of...

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?pala...xJyFU11,,10522

With the 1 point free from DSac and the 5 free from not needing a filler to DSac, I can snag PoJ and SoComm, with Divine Purpose and Unyielding Faith giving me a smidge more survivability and a bit less fearing in raids.

Holy/Prot should, and hopefully will still take and use it.

[SchickySC]

NERF. I was right from the beginning. It was bugged and not functioning as designed. I will be going back to ret spec then these changes go live.

[Soundscape]

It'll be useful for Protadins in my opinion. To Reduce the AoE damage of their party members.

Inc Maybe 2 prot paladins per raid in ICC?

[thoukaia]

Huge nerf. It was overpowered, but encounters were designed according to it. I hope blizzard understands that insane amounts of raid dmg cannot be healed without raid-wide cooldowns.

this.

Tbh it wont justify wasting points on the prot tree just to reach it, as it did at 3.1

spec ret for 8% crit ftw!

[Puremallace]

It'll be useful for Protadins in my opinion. To Reduce the AoE damage of their party members.

Inc Maybe 2 prot paladins per raid in ICC?

lol good luck with that. They buffed the piss out of AD to fullfill that pipe dream and I still see more Warriors and DK's tanking then us. Only thing this is doing is pissing of pally's. Party wide buff oh boi. Maybe I can be in the healers group.

[Kelesti]

lol good luck with that. They buffed the piss out of AD to fullfill that pipe dream and I still see more Warriors and DK's tanking then us. Only thing this is doing is pissing of pally's. Party wide buff oh boi. Maybe I can be in the healers group.

Even as a Holy Priest, and without "bubbling" myself with Power Word: Shield, I find myself surviving alot more than some of the DPS. And I see a lot less Warriors now than I used to, usually DK >= Paladin > Druid > Warrior, at least from my perspective.

And even if the Divine Sacrifice is only group wide, as a Priest, that is one group I don't have to worry about dying during that burst. That's why it's there. Same with a Feral (cat) or balance druid popping Tranquility. One group I -don't- have to worry about dying on me while I focus elsewhere.

[Puremallace]

YEah great concept about not having to worry about the group if that group is taking damage. If not then it wasted. It worked great because all damage was directed. Now if I am placed in a healer group or some crazy shit and they take no damage then opps it's wasted while RNG nukes another group.

[Kelesti]

YEah great concept about not having to worry about the group if that group is taking damage. If not then it wasted. It worked great because all damage was directed. Now if I am placed in a healer group or some crazy shit and they take no damage then opps it's wasted while RNG nukes another group.

Not particularily. Random raid takes random damage. Sometimes raid takes entire damage. And popping it in H-Anub phase 3 just as the raid approaches 50% HP is a great way to slow down his healing recieved, if you're the offtank. And don't even get me started on Heroic Twins. The entire raid's taking the damage anyways. If your target's healing, half the dps has to run through spheres to get to it anyways. Chances are at least two of those spheres are the wrong color and there will be damage to be had. 20% less raid damage just because you blew a cooldown, let alone everyone in your party being covered so I as a priest can toss my mana elsewhere...

The uses are there. People just need to stop being retarded about it.

[Puremallace]

If you look at how it used to be compared to what it will be it's a complete nerf of an ability that made us appealing to raid leads when recruiting.

People that are stacking all there points into it are about to change, I am betting to maybe 1 point if that in favor of something else.

[blu]

this.

Tbh it wont justify wasting points on the prot tree just to reach it, as it did at 3.1

spec ret for 8% crit ftw!

nah the true power of going into the prot tree was divine gaurdian anyways sacred shield mitigate'ing twice as much and lasting twice as much the raid dmg mitigation is just a once every 5 minute cookie u get out of it.

[Kelesti]

If you look at how it used to be compared to what it will be it's a complete nerf of an ability that made us appealing to raid leads when recruiting.

People that are stacking all there points into it are about to change, I am betting to maybe 1 point if that in favor of something else.

Using a raid wide shield wall that was bugged was what it took to be "appealing"? Wow, apparently all of our Paladins must have broken their mics because I haven't heard any of them bitching lately, or about upcoming stuff. If you're good at what you do, it doesn't matter. So maybe fail a little less?

[SchickySC]

nah the tru power of going into the prot was divine gaurdian anyways sacred shield mitigate'ing twice as much and lasting twice as much the raid dmg mitigation is just a once every 5 minute cookie u get out of it

Twice as much? try 20% more. Its not a huge amount. Yes its nice to give our tanks an extra little bit of EH, but in the end i still prefer to gear MP5/Haste and get my 8% from ret. The party buff will still be useful in a few fights. I'll probably still keep prot as an offspec.

[Puremallace]

Using a raid wide shield wall that was bugged was what it took to be "appealing"? Wow, apparently all of our Paladins must have broken their mics because I haven't heard any of them bitching lately, or about upcoming stuff. If you're good at what you do, it doesn't matter. So maybe fail a little less?

My point is they took an ability that actually contributed to raids and made it a liability. Rets are not going that far into the tree for it and I doubt holy will either.

They managed to fix a bug in it which is great and all, but made it pointless because only prot pally's will use it and I can't just pop divine sac while tanking a boss. Thats tends to have bad consequences to the healers.

[blu]

My point is they took an ability that actually contributed to raids and made it a liability. Rets are not going that far into the tree for it and I doubt holy will either.

They managed to fix a bug in it which is great and all, but made it pointless because only prot pally's will use it and I can't just pop divine sac while tanking a boss. Thats tends to have bad consequences to the healers.

only the bad paladins who cant go with out 8% crit will refuse to grab it trust me the best of the holy paladins will still see the worth of it and snatch it up if your at high end raiding at the moment and still need that 8% crit from ret you are fail straight out

p.s. i made tpyo earlier yes D.G. only increases the mitigation by 20% my bad typed it too quickly

[Puremallace]

only the bad paladins who cant go with out 8% crit will refuse to grab it trust me the best of the holy paladins will still see the worth of it and snatch it up if your at high end raiding at the moment and still need that 8% crit from ret you are fail straight out

p.s. i made tpyo earlier yes D.G. only increases the mitigation by 20% my bad typed it too quickly

True on that, but only 25%(if that) of the population will realize that and the other 75% will cut themselves short on talents builds.