When to use power word shield

[pacocharlie]

Hello all, I normally play a hunter but have recently rolled a priest to try out the world of healing. Everything is going well but I have a question. I have heard different things about PWS when applying it to a tank in an instance. Some tanks yell that I am making it hard for them to get aggro while others don't complain. Does this spell mess with the ability of a tank to generate threat? If not then when should I apply it? Before pulling or after damage is taken?

I am currently only level 40 and still learning so any advice is welcome.

[bahumut5]

I usually keep it up and keep renew up as well, than lie down while they finish the job... Occasional Flash of Light when they pull lots of mobs.

I never had a tank whining about it, I always got compliments on my good healing (Whilst mostly only using shield and renew <3)

[EdvardClassic]

Any tank telling you not to shield him/her is an awful tank.
PW:S does NOT interfere in ANY way with the tank's TPS. Therefore if your tank has problems holding aggro, it's not because of your shields, but because of his lack of tanking knowledge.
This applies, ofcourse, on level 80 situations and not on leveling.

[Taen]

I usually keep it up and keep renew up as well, than lie down while they finish the job... Occasional Flash of Light when they pull lots of mobs.

I never had a tank whining about it, I always got compliments on my good healing (Whilst mostly only using shield and renew <3)

Hmwhat

[chunx0r]

PW:S use to interfere with rage generation that was fixed in 3.0 so anyone complaining is behind the times

[bahumut5]

Hmwhat

Sorry, meant Flash Heal

[pacocharlie]

Ok, that is what I thought. I was avoiding it a little after I was told it hurts threat and would only use it in emergency situations. These lower level dungeons are pretty simple so I was just healing through everything. Worked fine that way just ate up a lot of mana. Thanks all.

[Juneah]

It used to be that PW:Shield would prevent warriors & druids from gaining rage... It's not that way anymore, if PW:Shield makes it that much harder for a tank to gain threat then they fail.

[harky]

Shields do not make it harder to tank anymore. In fact, once you get Rapture your shields will increase their ability to tank by giving Druids/Warriors more Rage, Paladins more mana and DKs more Runic Power. If a tank complains, laugh at them.

[Raptorg]

Never had complaints myself, if they say something, I'd just say stfu and tank.
Though I tend to stop using the shield on paladins every down and then, because it does interfere with their resources(While the shield restores 2% mana, it's still less than he'd get from just healing damage), but not enough to stop using it all the time, just every now and then until he gained some mana and start using it again. This is just to prevent him from stopping and drinking, and it usually only happens on single target heavy dungeons like the Violet Hold. So it's actually unrelated to your issue, but it's similar.

If you're level 40, I could understand the problem they're having, but it's not you shields, it's just that damage at those levels is so low, tanks barely take any damage and thus, barely gain any rage.
Once you go to outland, this should improve significantly.

[Nikeespank]

It used to be that PW:Shield would prevent warriors & druids from gaining rage... It's not that way anymore, if PW:Shield makes it that much harder for a tank to gain threat then they fail.

^ This.

Any tanks who may tell you not to do PW: Shield fails, and should be laughed at tbh :P

[fabian]

^ This.

Any tanks who may tell you not to do PW: Shield fails, and should be laughed at tbh :P

If it is a well geared paladin, and in an gauntlet instance like VH, where each trash mob are spawned at intervals, shielding might not be the best idea. The paladin would be very easy to heal anyway so a renew as Disc would probably be enough to heal them through trash.

Otherwise, just shield whenever you can.

[Dominate]

I remember having an argument with a rogue about this on his disc priest as apparently he was monitoring what our very polite druid tank was doing closely as well as knowing priests.

Druid said he was wrong, I said it was wrong, yet he kept going. In the end we just killed him, pugged a newly dinged hunter for free badges and carried on. Rapture tanks aside from paladins like so if it's a pallie and they seem to be fine I switch to renew otherwise I just bounce in and holy nova.

It's amusing when dps know more about tanking and healing roles than we do

[harky]

A good Paladin will only drop Consecration strategically in heroics. It's not needed on single target pulls, while it is on AOE pulls. The bonus is during AOE pulls Paladins have infinite mana. The Paladin 969 rotation only takes ~15% max mana per 9 seconds and it's purely from Consecration. If they don't drop Consecration except during AOE pulls their mana will steadily go up without any external mana returns.

[Nangz]

rage classes get rage from being hit

bubble prevents them from being hit

before the fix awhile ago it used to prevent them from getting rage this way

post fix people are still noobs

[Deleted]

I remember having an argument with a rogue about this on his disc priest as apparently he was monitoring what our very polite druid tank was doing closely as well as knowing priests.

Druid said he was wrong, I said it was wrong, yet he kept going. In the end we just killed him, pugged a newly dinged hunter for free badges and carried on. Rapture tanks aside from paladins like so if it's a pallie and they seem to be fine I switch to renew otherwise I just bounce in and holy nova.

It's amusing when dps know more about tanking and healing roles than we do

I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

@OP: It used to be annoying, as being shielded prevented you from getting rage. It has been fixed, there's absolutely no reason not to shield anymore (well, apart from a paladin low on mana perhaps, but that shouldn't really happen anyway).