Shield your tanks! - WotLK Healing Compendium v3.0

[Kaeaskavi]

I reiterate what I said in the 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4 versions of this thread. Any tank complaining about a PW:S pre-pull in a raid situation is a moron. End of story. It absorbs, at most, half a hit. If they're smart, they ran in with Bloodrage up anyway (or equivalent for feral druids), so they have enough rage to land their opening move. The shield lowers the incoming damage for the first 5 seconds of the fight, during which they should have landed at least 3 auto-attack swings, giving them enough rage to use another special. Then it's over, the damage ramps up, and they have enough rage.

Rage-starving in a Sunwell raid environment is a myth pre-3.0. And post-3.0, they have so many tools in their arsenal, and such great TPS that a little lost to slightly less rage generation is meaningless.

Shield your tanks.

[[Jett]-Silk]

Be wary of PoM. I haven't seen it yet, but heard some grumblings that if you get a crit PoM on the tank at the beginning of the fight, you could have some adds on your tail. This isn't to big a problem with pally/dk tanks as AoE tanking is EZ mode. More druid/warr. Again, I haven't seen it, but just an FYI, keep fade handy.

[AtomicBomb]

Yeah, I heard the same thing Silk... That's why when I heal I put PoM after 4-5 sec just in case. Fade has a 5 min cooldown for disc/holy and 3 if they get the talent for shadow (although I don't see why a shadow would use PoM in a fight except to give a hand to the healer) so there's a risk there...

And for the shield issue, apparently blizz is looking it to that whole rage generation system with sheild on. But then again, they also said that duo spec is at the corner at release of wotlk, so I don't really expect them to get that problem fixed any time soon... But yeah, shield ftw if the tank knows how to play with it... I usually ask the tank if he's ok 'bout it and argue if he's not...

[Blazeinferno]

Currently, PoM produces 0 threat. I would test this after every patch b/c some believe it is merely a bug. Also, Abomb, I believe you referenced the cooldowns for Shadowfiend. Fade is somewhere in the 30 second range.

[AtomicBomb]

oh yeah... was talking about shadow fiend... messed up there....

your right!

[Blazeinferno]

next patch, there will be 0 detriment to pw:shielding warriors as they shall still generate rage. for druids, it'll still be iffy, but, as kae posted, tanks get hit hard these days and rage too much of an issue, save on some pulls. Thus, if you are spec'd for shielding efficiency, (Improved Power Word: Shield) by all means throw it on.

one thing that you do need to watch out for, pw:shield still generates threat as a decent heal on the tank would and if you use it right when the tank enters combat, you will pull aggro and can die. so do it before the pull or after tank gets a hit or 2 in.