I always used Selfless Healer, but to be honest, not really in terms of " usefulness " basically, but mostly because I was able to " see " the amount of healing that I was able to do. However, I wonder if I'm missing something good, or at least interesting, with Sacred Shield ...
Is it worth it for PVP in general ? Is there a way to " measure " the amount of absorption it brings ?
The issue with our 'healing' tier of talents is that they're all magic effects, and therefore can be dispelled or stolen. SH is just the only one that doesn't benefit a mage when they steal it from you.
If they had actually followed through with making Spellsteal detrimental in some way for the mage if they spammed it, SH would help you run stupid mages in to the ground (because they'd spam SS every time they saw something that could be stolen).
I'm amused they said "A fix will be coming soon" after the hotfix that ruined sacred shield's viability in 5.0 (delay absorb + loss of a tick)
...has it come yet?
Also our Tier 3 and 2/3rds of our tier 4 talents are devoted to improve the quality of life of any 64+ mage in the vicinity. (sure I don't need that shield/hot, you can have it for full effect/duration while I do nothing about it.)