Ever Since I binded my Shield to ” Alt ~ ” I have been free and easy in using it.
Shielding in panic situations is easier, any time I take Aoe, Getting pounced on by Catladys pets, Frost damage on Hodir ect ect…
I has a bubble and I’m not afraid of using it. On me, or even if a team mate is in range, and going down too fast in a Aoe environment for heals.
One of the things I have been looking at on our WWS’s is how many times Powerword Shield is cast. This is important to me because my biggest competition out of our 3 Shadow Priests ( Even manages to beat me sometimes) Doesn’t even usually cast it on himself. So I noticed that I was significantly higher in application of it. In one night I cast it 116 odd times. He did once.
My two other Shadow Priests in the raid are the closest examples of performance management I have – so of course I am going to pay attention to little differences to see if I can continue to improve.
I don’t shield for decoration, I usually shield if there is a threat of AOE damage, or a significant chunk of damage, where the shield might save me, or contribute to saving me.
However it may have some impacts as the result of excess shielding – Slower DPS? – Loss of cooldowns, I also find I will cut myself off mid spell to shield.
Its a habit I might need to break. It doesn’t seem to be adversely affecting my DPS in comparision, however it may be gimping me.
I’m not saying to give up shielding altogether. They say in one breath you are responsible for your own health – followed by a Dead Dps does no dps. But healing really slows down our DPS , so I prefer to Bubble and let my VE healing top me up if I am not getting a heal ( if its urgent then I will pot/stone break out if necessary but only as a last resort eg I’m dying and I’ve already hit disperse.) ( Our healers are awesome… but they can’t be everywhere at once, and sometimes they die too.. )
So I probably do have an itchy Shielding finger – but the benefit is on that one night that I shielded so often ( progression raiding) I had the least incoming damage of 25 raiders, and that has got to be a good thing..
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Dead dps does no dps, if shielding you or someone else prevents death, you might at that very moment not contribute to your own dps, but you do contribute to the raid’s dps as a whole, make life of the healers easier, or saved yourself from dying.
Be careful with shields if there is a disc priest around though, they generally have way better shields, and your weakened soul will be in the way of them casting shields.
So yes, from a healer point of view, keeping yourself alive is very useful, but do communicate with your healers about it, after all it is their job keeping you alive.
I’m in two minds about this. I’m firmly of the opinion that dps need to do all they can to avoid unecessary damage, but many encounters are balanced around a certain amount of unavoidable environmental or aoe damage. In that respect, you shouldn’t *need* to shield. When you look at the numbers thrown around, a shield won’t often save your life, all it will do is make your healers’ job a little easier. So on balance, I’d say it’s *probably* better for the raid to trust in your healers but feel free to shield if you know damage is incoming and can spare the global cooldown – for me, that’s usually while I’m on the move.
I think in most cases you need to trust your healers. I can see casting now and then when you aren’t getting heals for one reason or another, or during specific high damage aoe’s (XT’s tantrum, Hodir’s Frozen blows). VE and dpsing might be better help on the aoe anyway. If you casting it 116 times in a single raid night you are probably using it to often.
That said, using all of your skills is what makes the difference between an average player and a good player in my opinion. Anyone can avoid the fire and dps. A good player is aware of what is going on in the raid and knows how to use all of their skills to help it along.
From a Disc Priest and Healer Lead point of view, I have to agree with the above two comments.
You have to have faith in your healers, that they will do thier job. With that said it’s also your job to do everything you can to stay alive so you can continue to DPS. From my Shadow Priest days (I’ll admit my GL made me take Shield off my bar) I tried to depend on VE and DPS to top me off or keep me up till someone could get me a heal.
From a Disc Priest point of view, nothing drives me more insane then to find out I can’t cast a shield because someone already has a Weakened Soul debuff that I didn’t put there. Then again if you are low enough that you’re shielding yourself, I’m failing at my job.
I guess it really boils down to when and how often you are doing it. Are you shielding just when you or someone else is about to die, or the minute you take damage?
@Shyraia & Blessing
I Shield when I know regular damage is incomming, but its certainly a valid point about if a disc priest is already planning/casting a shield and my shield which does not do as much has caused the debuff. I will be more mindful of that –
@Merlot & Squiggly – Interesting thing about the trust part, I struggle with this trust as its been drummed into me that you do everything you can to survive, I don’t trust the healers as much as I should. I hit disperse a few seconds into Gravity bomb, or when I’m in Ignis’s pot, Kol’s Grip, or when cat ladys minions are hitting on me – reduces my incomming damage yes, but increases the chances of survival because I don’t have to trust them to heal me as much. The Shielding and Dispersion may seem logical to do when you can, and I do what is right – but I do worry that I take raid awareness to a hypterattentive level..
When taken in a raid as shadow, my job is to DPS, hence no shield except reactively (I’m at less than 50% hp and damage will keep on coming). You have to put your confidence in your healers, you already are a lighter load for them due to vampiric embrace.
The only reason to ever put a shield on someone else than me is when I notice consistent death through multiple tries, for example on Mimiron 10 when first trying it we were having trouble because the assigned raid healer would sometimes have trouble keeping someone up through Napalm (a direct damage AOE followed by a heavy 8 sec dot), most of the time if I was in range I was throwing a shield to give the healer time to get going, in my opinion it allowed for a shorter learning curve. Now that we have the fight mastered I stopped doing it and people now survive without it, but during progression it was a significant plus.