Sacred Shield, Eternal Flame for Ret and Prot

[cletis1234]

I'm not entirely sure why Blizzard never decided to make any changes to Sacred Shield or Eternal Flame for Ret or Prot. All the major changes they implemented were done for the benefit of Holy and it seems like they just didn't care about changing the functionality of any of these talents for Ret and Prot.

"Sacred Shield

Regarding Sacred Shield, we tried giving the talent as a baseline ability to Protection, but we’re unhappy with that experiment and are likely to revert the change. We agree that the current (old) version of Sacred Shield is more attractive to Holy than the (new) version. We also would likely have to nerf Protection to compensate for getting Holy Shield in addition to another talent. Overall, we think the current (old) version of Sacred Shield is a better design. Perhaps we can still make Sacred Shield more attractive for Holy and Retribution, and make the other two talents (Selfless Healer, Eternal Flame) more attractive to Protection."

They specifically stated they wanted to make SS and EF more attractive to Ret and Prot, and then they go and reduce the effectiveness of SS by 30%, lmao. EF received a slight buff in numbers but its still not as good for Rets or Prots as it is for Holy. Holy received all the functionality changes, and I can say that Holy legitimately has 3 viable talents to choose from now.

Nothing has changed for Prot or Ret. Is anyone else completely baffled by all of this?

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Edit: Yea I didn't know they reverted the 30% nerf for Ret. I guess the only thing that is still an issue, is why haven't they done anything to make it more attractive to Ret in PVP or something? Like removing the 6 seconds it takes before the shield activates while adding a cooldown so we can't spam it? It's pretty much what they did for Holy.

[Kyuuseishu]

I'm not entirely sure why Blizzard never decided to make any changes to Sacred Shield or Eternal Flame for Ret or Prot. All the major changes they implemented were done for the benefit of Holy and it seems like they just didn't care about changing the functionality of any of these talents for Ret and Prot.

They specifically stated they wanted to make SS and EF more attractive to Ret, and then they go and reduce the effectiveness of SS by 30%, lmao. EF received a slight buff in numbers but its still not as good for Rets or Prots as it is for Holy. Holy received all the functionality changes, and I can say that Holy legitimately has 3 viable talents to choose from now.

Nothing has changed for Prot or Ret. Is anyone else completely baffled by all of this?

Noone is baffled but you really, there has never been anything wrong with SS or SH for prot or ret hence why there are no changes. SS was nerfed for prot only because of how effective it was for them, the absorb ticks they can achieve with vengeance is amazing. The only situations where ret has to heal themselves or others is solo'ing content or PVP, which both SH and SS cover. Prot, they won't use anything but SS because absorbs > heals, so EF and SH are out of the question for them really.

But on the EF front, a ret isn't going to waste their holy power on EF when SS is superior to EF, and in most other situations, SH is superior to that because judgment is already in your rotation.

Also if you take a look at the 5.4 discussion for holy, the viability of all of them is questioned with EF atm seeming to be superior to both SH and SS due to the uncomfortable nature of both of them.

[cletis1234]

Also if you take a look at the 5.4 discussion for holy, the viability of all of them is questioned with EF atm seeming to be superior to both SH and SS due to the uncomfortable nature of both of them.

Right now, Ret's most viable talent is SH because of how well it works with our rotation and simply how powerful it is as an off-heal. With the current change to SS, lowering its effectiveness by 30%, why would Ret take such a pitiful absorb over a much more powerful self-heal. The dev's stated they wanted to make SS more attractive to Ret in an earlier patch note, but so far they only made it more attractive for Holy, and nerfed it for Ret.

This puts us in the same spot where Holy used to be regarding which Talent is outright better for us. Holy used to always pick EF, but with the new changes to the other Talents, Holy can legitimately choose something else now. Ret's always used to take SH for PVP, and you can argue that SS was effective for PVE, but with a 30% nerf to SS, why would Ret bother taking SS now, even for PVE, when SH is just as strong as it always has been for us?

[Kyuuseishu]

Right now, Ret's most viable talent is SH because of how well it works with our rotation and simply how powerful it is as an off-heal. With the current change to SS, lowering its effectiveness by 30%, why would Ret take such a pitiful absorb over a much more powerful self-heal. The dev's stated they wanted to make SS more attractive to Ret in an earlier patch note, but so far they only made it more attractive for Holy, and nerfed it for Ret.

This puts us in the same spot where Holy used to be regarding which Talent is outright better for us. Holy used to always pick EF, but with the new changes to the other Talents, Holy can legitimately choose something else now. Ret's always used to take SH for PVP, and you can argue that SS was effective for PVE, but with a 30% nerf to SS, why would Ret bother taking SS now, even for PVE, when SH is just as strong as it always has been for us?

Please read the official patch notes once in a while, the reverted the change for ret in regards to SS. Also like I said, look in the 5.4 thread for holy, they can't just pick 1 of the 3 and its equal to the other 2, its simply not the case.

But for SS vs SH, SH is only truly more powerful if you are able to get supplication up for each cast (on yourself), in PvP yes SH is more powerful because of its offheal capability to others. But this is not the case when you are on your own, if you are vs a boss of some kind, supplication isn't going to be available for all those casts.

[Nairobi]

There is no 30% nerf for Ret anymore, only Prot.

Ret will still take SH for pretty much everything.
Prot will still take SS for pretty much everything.
Holy will probably reroll to Disc/RDruid or something.

[Freia]

The buffs to the talents was part of our compensation for the Eternal Flame nerf(removal of Illuminated Healing on the HoT) that completely gutted our playstyle and output. In the end, EF is still better. That tier is a heal/absorb tier, it should be common sense why it would effect holy more than ret.

[cletis1234]

Yea I didn't know they reverted the 30% nerf for Ret. I guess the only thing that is still an issue, is why haven't they done anything to make it more attractive to Ret in PVP or something? Like removing the 6 seconds it takes before the shield activates while adding a cooldown so we can't spam it? It's pretty much what they did for Holy.

[Bijin]

Have a question ???

SS need 3 HP for retry and Prot, or only for Holy...

[Freia]

Have a question ???

SS need 3 HP for retry and Prot, or only for Holy...

SS doesn't need 3 HP for any spec.

[Bijin]

Sacred Shield now applies its damage absorption shield immediately, can be active on more than one target at a time, but the talent now costs mana and has 3 charges with a 10-second recharge.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...iscussion-Pt-2

Page 1

Luck

[Promdates]

Holy will probably reroll to Disc/RDruid or something.

It's funny you say that. We have a healing priest who thought about switching to holy paladin (since we have 1.5 technically, one of them shows sporadically and plays from his iphone internet) as we have an abundance of healing priests (3 atm). It wasn't until I showed him the holy pal changes when he said screw it and decided to not do it.

[Kyuuseishu]

Sacred Shield now applies its damage absorption shield immediately, can be active on more than one target at a time, but the talent now costs mana and has 3 charges with a 10-second recharge.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...iscussion-Pt-2

Page 1

Luck

This only applies to holy, for ret the damage absorption is applied first tick in, does not have a charge system, is limited to one target and is free.