Blessing of Sanctuary and the raid

[Marduk]

There has been a lot of discussion going on lately about this spell
for those who do not know it, it is the 21st talent in the protection tree for paladin, and it holds a blessing spot just like any other blessing for example blessing of kings.
 
Gives all members of the raid or group that share the same class with the target the Greater Blessing of Sanctuary, reducing damage dealt from all sources by up to 24 for 15 min. In addition, when the target blocks a melee attack the attacker will take 35 Holy damage. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time.
so 24 dmg reduction, no matter if blackwing himself is hitting you or hogger incomming dmg minus 24
 
this may sound like a nce blessing but the fact is that to get this blessing you have to "waste" a lot of talents that will not benefit the raid
sure you will have an extra sturdy paladin but those 21 talents have to come from somewhere.
and what use is an extra sturdy paladin in raids, we rarely get agro, and even if we do we normaly bubble or have enough armor and reduction already
 
so lets say 10 out of those 21 talents are utterly wasted
those 10 talents have to come from somewhere, it would of course not be of best interest to the raid that those would come out of the holy tree since then we heal less, but also the retribution tree is not a good idea
( i can already hear it now, i can grind to with my protection build, yes but paladin and warrior is not the same, warrior has a lot more reduction and shield block then your average pally and so we could use a little more dmg) and also if i would personaly get 10 points out of retribution i would no longer have +222 atack power BOM but 185 also nerfing the raid
would i get it from holy, it would mean 33 instead of 40 mana per 5seconds BOW on my part and no divine favor ( your next heal will crit when used 2 min CD ) and no more mana return after crit and 20min longer cooldown on lay on hands
 
but befor you jump to conclusions, lets take a look at the use of the talent, 24 dmg reduction, this may sound very nice for tanks and AOE people in AQ40 crazy bug tunnel and those who tank the swarm of mobs
but we already make it true those fights alive and make it easier on the healers using blessing of sacrafice
Places a Blessing on the party member, transfering 55 damage taken per hit to the caster. Lasts 30 sec. Players may only have one Blessing on them per Paladin at any one time.
wich you can see gets more damage off the target then sanctuary and is 100% talent cost free able to be cast by any paladin we bring, even if its a soldier who got lost
 
and to those who think the damage the warrior will reflect will matter, bastet did a small calculation about that, and he does the same dmg with 1 backstab then a tank would reflect back in 1 minute of tanking so not really worth it there either
 
so if anyone out there still thinks this blessing is the thing we need, please tell me why and what would you have the paladins drop for it
 
 
 

[Gallahan]

Only way to justify a pally going that deep in prot tree would be a pally tank, and thats not very likely, its fun, but only for fights that have grown boring because they hardly can fail, like ony f.x.

[Bastet]

Blessing of sanc is at best sub par, and with TBC, and limiting to 25 ppl raids i doubt youll see many paladins in the raid, and then id rather have bok/bom/bos...

[Padding]

I have to say that i think Holy specced paladins is what benefits the raids the most
 
SuperB healing is KEY in a lot of fights, and getting just that extra healing from Paladins - i really think - can actually make a difference.
 
What people mostly think is the problem, is that they would like to have a specc for raids and a specc for non-raids
 
I've been doing pvp for the last 2-3 weeks, and i've gotten HUGE amount of compliments because i can heal that much, and im always high in the rate of getting kills, so its not important for me to have dps at all
 
The only thing where i can see retri being useful is for grinding, and i dont do that much
 
Conclusion being, that i personally think paladins should be more holy than prot/retri, since i think thats what benefit our PvE raids the most

[JanuZ]

I would like to start by quoting a post i made in the paladins in the raid thread some months ago. It has some calculations on the effect of going down to 25 or 20 talents in the holy tree

Well i never even considered doing anything else then heal during a raid since i love healing with my paladin. Paladins are the most mana efficent healers and they don't have a bad healing/sec ratio when they have some +healing gear and BoL is up.
Paladins have never been what they were supposed to be according to Blizzard. Their DPS is horrible compared to all classes and only reason they can function as damage dealers in PvP is because they can get some huge spike damage. Now a paladin can tank decently if they have talent the Protection tree and i think paladin tanks might be extremely useful in Naxramas but the problem is that a paladin is a hybrid and not a very good hybrid when it comes to raiding, when a tank is needed you want druids since they have a taunt, when it comes to DPS i would choose catform druid or shadow priest over a paladin.

Now to the question of %crit and speccing down from 31holy.

1%crit equals about 4.5mana/5seconds and +8healing(with about +400healing from items, this number increases/decreases with more/less +healing) when you are casting flash of light.
A paladin gains 1%crit with spells for every 29.5int.
A paladin with the 5%crit talent in holy and 295int will crit about 17%(not sure about base crit without int but i think it is around 2%) of his heals.

This means that:

a semi well equiped paladin with 30points in holy tree adds about 76.5mana/5seconds and +136healing from crits.

my paladin has around 25%crit rate when i add the 100%crit every 2minutes and gets about  112.5mana/5sec and +200healing.

a paladin with my wish list would get 120mana/5sec and +270healing

loosing the 5%crit talent makes you loose about +40healing and 22.5mana/5sec

loosing the 100% mana back on crit(less then 20holy) will cost you 45-120mana/5sec and +70-300healing.



Now those numbers are only true if you are constantly healing with Flash of light and BoL is up(BoL equals +267healing so it has huge effect on the amount of +healing gained from crits).

now these numbers are based on my Lawbringer wearing paladin and my wish list from AQ40 so they should be relatively correct for your current gear level though they are based on top rank Flash heal so the numbers might be a little lower if you are using lower rank flash heal.

Now Protection tree has alot of utility talents for raids and i think alot of people miss the point of that. My pally is currently specced 33/18/0

BoK is the greatest player cast buff in the game at 11 points

Improved BoP is amazing just think about the diffrence of getting a mage taking no damage while AoEing twice in the same fight instead of once.

Improved Hammer of Justice, again in a 6minute fight with stunable adds you can stun 8 times instead of 6times and a 5second stun can equal 5k healing or even more.

But the only way i would ever go for 21 protection while raiding would be 30/21/0 and then i wouldn't be able to do a single thing solo, i would be ok for PvP with all the support i can give but the only thing i could do if i was caught alone would be to heal my self until someone else comes and helps me.

[Lucian]

Just to test this, if the officers say, I'm willing to bring my pally along on a 40 man raid seeing as he currently the only one specced that way. One run, one test, one chance - you make up your minds.
 
EDIT: Try it as a test at the next BWL raid.  Lucian only needs three DS (belt, chest and legs); I'll position him outside BWL for the Nefarian fight, and play Bobby through to that point.  Administer the buff, then switch him for Lucian to get the DS chest.  All I ask is the chance to whisper for any judgement or nice gear that drops (to be taken from Lucian's pot of dkp).
 
It makes sense, at least to test it once.
 
And before I get slagged for it, a pally who has sanctuary might be an ideal sunject for BoSanc on shield classes, and BoSacrifice on others. As a test again of course...

[Gorion]

ok, since ime the one whos been requesting BoSanc all the time, lets do some corrections from Marduk's post...

before that, take a look at these talent specs, i took in consideration Marduk's talents from the profile thread in the pally section, and then made a more raid benefitial talent spec, picking the talents that will actually benefit the raid, and not pvp/grinding (although this talent spec could be used anyways with minimal loss).

my dummy spec: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/talents/paladin/talents.html?05503121521000500251200231000500000000000000

Marduk's spec: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/talents/paladin/talents.html?05503102521100500251000000000502050010000000

Please open them both, in different windows
 
now, lets start weeding out some untruths from Marduk's post...

taking talents from the retribution tree is not a good idea

and why in your oppinion is that? the talents i removed from your retri tree: (Deflection, seal of command and improved judgement) benefit mostly you.

so, lets tackle these named talents,

Deflection: 5/5 gives 5% extra parry, now you may parry an attack, but as you said in your post:

we rarely get agro, and even if we do we normaly bubble or have enough armor and reduction already

so in your own words, 5 points for 5% more parry is near to useless.

Improved Judgement: 2/2 gives 2 seconds reduction on judgement spells.

now, what do pallys actually judge in our raids? Judgement of Light and Judgement of wisdom. (these are only used on certain bosses), now, keep in mind that both these blessings last roughly 30seconds with a cooldown of 15 seconds? (with no talent points invested).

in my oppinion not needed since the cooldown is shorter than the duration.

and the last one for the retri tree,

Seal of Command, 1 talent point needed:  Gives the Paladin a chance to deal additional Holy damage equal to 70% of the damage of the attack.  

Judging this seal causes 68 to 74 holy damage or 137 to 147 if the target is stunned

conclusion, totally useless in raids

next topic:

if i would personally get 10 points out of retribution i would no longer have +222 atack power BOM but 185 also nerfing the raid

again, youre wrong.  in my dummy spec, youde still have 5/5 Blessing of Might, thus granting the extra 20% bonus.


now lets handle the so feared Protection tree:

you will loose nothing from this with my dummy spec, but gain:

lets list them:

Improved righteous fury,  2/3 talent points: i put 2 points in this to acess the next tier, basically this gives 35% more threat generated by righteous fury, this could be handy to get a caster out of a sticky situation..

could be exchanged for anything else..

Improved concentration aura, 3/3 talent points: Inreases the effect of your Concentration Aura by an additional 15% and gives all group members affected by the aura an additional 15% chance to resist silence and interrupt effects.

now, that is a really nice talent for healers/casters

Improved Hammer of Justice, 2/3 talent points:  Decreases the cooldown of your Hammer of justice spell by 10 seconds.

used 2 points to get the next tier of the tree, but still a handy decrease to the instant pally stun cooldown. which will help raids while clearing bwl packs.

now the reason of this whole thread:

Blessing of Sanctuary, 1/1 talent points:

(Greater version)
Places a Blessing on the target Class, reducing damage dealt from all sources by up to 24 for 15min. In addition, when the target blocks a melee attack the attacker will take 35 holy damage.

now, why is this talent that good. as Marduk explained before:

so 24 dmg reduction, no matter if blackwing himself is hitting you or hogger incomming dmg minus 24

you might say.. 24 damage reduction is crap, well you should take in consideration that tanks get hit all the time.

lets do an example, a tank gets hit for, lets say 2k+ hits on a BWL run? (could be more or less, but its just an example)

that would mean, 14,000 damage less on this certain tank. and this is just 1 tank.

now, lets say 5 tanks get hit for 2k hits, that would mean 240,000 less damage taken, just by this blessing.  

now, obviousely, the less damage taken, the less mana is used to heal. it may be a minimal amount, but if you get the point of the example, that little 24 damage reduction, adds up to big amounts.


the last tree, Holy:

lets comapre my dummy tree with Marduk's

Losses with my tree:

Unyielding Faith, i put only 1 point from 2/2 and that way, you loose 5% to resist fear and disorient effects.

Lasting Judgement: i put 0 talents in this talent, compared to Marduk's 1/3.
reason is, that the judgements concered (Light and wisdom) already last longer than their respective cooldowns. so its a waste of a talent point.

Gains with my tree:

Improved Lay on Hands, 2/2 talent points:

Gives the rarget of your Lay on Hands spell a 30% bonus to their armor value from items for 2 min. In addition the cooldown for your lay on Hands spell is reduced by 20min.

now that is a really handy talent, meaning if cast on me (round 9,800 armor unbuffed) will mean around 2940 extra armor for 2mins, not to mention the cooldown will be reduced to 40min from 60min, which is a really good thing.


now, all this big essay really point out, that Marduk can be a much better help to the raid by sacrificing some useless talents and a seal he uses mainly for solo dps.

that concludes my answer to that question:

please tell me why and what would you have the paladins drop for it

Disclaimer: No offence was/is intented to Marduk, i just took his spec as an example, since he was the one posing this thread and claiming some points.

[Ragnarh]

Dude .
Now ppl wil start comparing specs and I wil have to update my profile.

[Soalra]

righty then, to start with i have actually had paladins in my old guild switch to protection tree for this buff (as a request) 2 did, they found that;
 
imp concentration aura = useless
 
imp righteous fury = useless without soc (cant do anything to gain the threat)
 
toughness = useless unless your planning on tanking
 
guardians favor = useful very useful and great for any paly that is going for bok
 
imp hammer of justice, good for raid on some things that can be stunned (very limited) also handy for pvp
 
blessing of sanc itself = reasuring for tanks but didnt make much of a diff in actual practice
 
thats the prot ones got used sorted now onto the next
 
on the holy tree gor took away;
 
lasting judgement, first off gor ur wrong on ur idea that judgements last 30 secs that was pre the paladin patch, they now last 10 seconds unless u are hitting the target to renew to judgement, the improved judgement is the only thing that adds time to the judgement without hitting and i myself have gone for a 30 second judgement (very handy)
 
unyielding faith - 1 = one of the most useful talents for alot of fights (eg ony, the 3 bugs etc etc) get alot of fear resists against instance enemies (not so good in pvp)
 
imp lay of hands, great if u use it alot
 
finally the ret trees
 
deflection, agreed not use to raid but good for him grinding
 
imp judgement again not too useful in raids given judgement is already a quick cooldown spell
 
SoC = paladins best ability to kill something before it kills him, not useful in raids other than to seco or gara if they ever get to go dps but relied upon by most as their primary offensive ability for pve (outside 40 mans) and pvp
 
think that covers all the differences and to sum it up basically, the prot tree is extremely rubish past the 11 needed to get bok (can be very good for the 11 needed for bok) bosanc isnt actually that good and ive tried it in raids with my old guild in mc/ony/bwl/zg only real place it is of use is against such things as fankriss (multiple small hitting enemies) otherwise largely just a comfort buff for tanks (not good but nice to know its there)
 
to get this he has no lasting judgement, resists less fears and cannot grind and will be very board in pvp and have alot of boring useless points in prot
 
cheers

[Sinap]

I always disagreed with getting BoSanc, but Gorion seemed to sum it up really well.. aswel as providing a viable spec which kept everything a raid could benefit from, which also included BoSanc. However, it still is a sucky amount compared the size of the hits a tank receives against end game bosses. Upto you though.

[JanuZ]

most of what you wrote there is correct gorion but again, i think any pally that doesn't have atleast 30 points in holy shouldn't even be considered for raiding.

The increased judgement time is for mana saving.

Again the reduced judgement time is a for judging damage judgements and it increases DPS alot.

You have basicly reduced a pallies DPS by 50% by the spec you wrote.

I usually find Lay on hands wasted spell since a pally is almost never out of mana and you really don't want your pally out of mana

As i said the only way i would ever consider a BoSanct spec is 30/21/0 and i would never ever spec that way unless i only played my pally for raids and did other things on a alt.

[Soalra]

I always disagreed with getting BoSanc, but Gorion seemed to sum it up really well.. aswel as providing a viable spec which kept everything a raid could benefit from, which also included BoSanc. However, it still is a sucky amount compared the size of the hits a tank receives against end game bosses. Upto you though.

not viable when mostly useless and will most likely reduce the users enjoyment outside raiding, as draz said only time u would spec that way is if you dont do anything but raid 40 mans and also u have a desire to give your tanks a blanky :narnar:

[Marduk]

ok gorion, picture the following
 
there is a dude standing in front of you, he has a HUGE sledgehammer in his hands, he is going to hit you on the head, and you quickly fold a paper hat, and put it on for protection, THATS the protection you get
 
 
Disclaimer: No offence was/is intented to Marduk, i just took his spec as an example, since he was the one posing this thread and claiming some points.
 
well i did... TAKE MAJOR OFFENCE

[Sinap]

Kiss and make up bitches

[Marduk]

shut up sinap, i mean it