Tag Archives: Shield

The Light and How to Swing It: Holy Shield and the future of active mitigation

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 24 other people, obsessing over his hair (a blood elf racial!), and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense.

It’s been a little more than two months now since patch 4.2 brought us the redesigned Holy Shield. Since then, we’ve had ample time to see its true power, to see what an amazing addition to our toolbox it is. And that’s only the beginning.

Blizzard is gearing up in either patch 4.3 (or, more likely, 5.0) to introduce a new facet of tanking for all classes — what it’s deemed “active mitigation”. Coupled with the (in my opinion, misguided) neutering of threat, the profession of tanking is going to change dramatically. In this column, I’m going to talk about the ramifications of the Holy Shield change in regards to active mitigation — specifically, what it’s meant for paladin tanking in the Firelands and how it points the way to a future of more control over our survivability.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Holy Shield and the future of active mitigation originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 02 Sep 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Exploring the ramifications of the 4.2 Holy Shield change

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 24 other people, obsessing over his hair (a blood elf racial!), and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense.

Blizzard fired off the latest salvo in the Battle of Blockcap, this time making a seriously substantive change to one of our signature, foundational abilities:

Holy Shield has been redesigned. This talent is now an activated ability off the global cooldown. It grants 20% increased block amount to a paladin’s shield blocks for 10 seconds, with a 30-second cooldown.



This of course set off a firestorm of commentary across Twitter, the official forums, Maintankadin, and blogs of all stripes. Many have approached the change with skepticism — if not outright hostility — and I must protest that they are doing so at their own peril. While many are terming this the Holy Shield nerf, I, dear reader, humbly submit this is a Holy Shield buff.

I’ll explain why.

Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: Exploring the ramifications of the 4.2 Holy Shield change

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The Light and How to Swing It: Exploring the ramifications of the 4.2 Holy Shield change originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Phat Loot Phriday: Shield of Four Grey Towers

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“This is totally not a Crest of Retribution,” Throgg explained, hefting the new shield above his head. “That was a fine shield, a mainstay of the paladin and warrior orders. Those brave men would slap a shield spike on the Crest and use it to farm dozens of enemies at once.”

The classroom of young tanks sighed appreciatively. Lolegolas smiled in pride, basking in the idea of Throgg as a teacher.

“No, this is not that crest,” Throgg continued. “This is the Shield of Four Grey Towers. You can purchase it from a vendor after proving your worth in dungeons. It is one of the finest shields, short of Elementium Earthguard. And considering the truly insane prices those run, it’s a good option.”

“It’s shiny, too,” Lolegolas said. “It’s quite the butch-looking shield.”

Shield of the Four Grey Towers
  • Type Shield
  • Armor 11,696
  • Strength 168
  • Stamina 252
  • Item level 346
  • Equip Increases your dodge rating by 112 (1.72% @ L85)
  • Equip Increases your mastery rating by 112

How do you get it? This item can be purchased from your Justice Quartermaster for 950 justice points.
How do you get rid of it? You can sell the Shield of Four Grey Towers for 16 gold, 11 silver, and 77 copper. Or you can disenchant it into a Heavenly Shard.

Gallery: Phat Loot Phriday: Cataclysm

Shield of Four Grey TowersDestroyer of WorldsGlovaal's Choppink SvordBreastplate of the Poetic OrcAlimony

Phat Loot Phriday brings you the scoop on some of the most … interesting … loot in the World of Warcraft, often viewed through the eyes of the stalwart Throgg and indelible Lolegolas. Suggest items you think we should feature by emailing gray@wow.com.

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Phat Loot Phriday: Shield of Four Grey Towers originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 24 Dec 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Totem Talk: The myth of the well-itemized elemental shaman shield

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Guest hosting is serious business. Not everyone can live up to the challenge the way Alf did. Still, as part of a mission of mercy, shadow-priest-turned-elemental-shaman Fox Van Allen is rolling the dice and taking the helm of Totem Talk this week. How does mercy fit in, exactly? Well, have you seen what happens when rabid elementals invade the comment sections of Joe’s resto version and Rich’s enhancement version? Not pretty.

To get our children through their early days of life, we tell them little fictions to make things more magical and more fun.

Hurry up and get to sleep so Santa will bring you lots of presents!

You should take that tooth and put it under your pillow; the Tooth Fairy pays big money for those!

There are plenty of well-itemized spellpower shields out there for elemental shaman!

As you grow up, you learn the sad truth behind it all. That obese man coming sneaking into your house on Christmas Eve is actually trying to perpetrate a home invasion. Those who collect the teeth of others are most likely in need of serious psychiatric help. And for the longest time, we elemental shaman used to suffer the quiet indignation of carrying around gobs of useless MP5 on our shields, just because Blizzard didn’t see it necessary to design shields around our specific needs.

Well, my totem-flinging friends, I have some good news — not regarding Santa or the Tooth Fairy (sorry), but regarding that spellpower shield. You do have options. And there’s more good news: With Cataclysm coming right around the corner, we’re about to become proverbial kids in a candy store.

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Totem Talk: The myth of the well-itemized elemental shaman shield originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 09 Sep 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Spiritual Guidance: Shield spam and Divine Aegis, a theorycrafting story

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In the beginning there were priests. Then Blizzard said “Let there be other classes!” Things have been a lot more complicated ever since. Fortunately, there is Spiritual Guidance, WoW.com’s bi-weekly guide for priests. On Sundays you can enjoy discussion on discipline, holy, and healing in the company of Dawn Moore. We don’t have cookies here, but only because we call them biscuits, and serve them with tea, sandwiches, and scones. Did you want one lump, or two?

A couple of months ago I found myself talking to a non-priest about the gems I had slotted on my character. He was of the understanding that disc priests wanted nothing but crit, and thought it was strange that I had gemmed straight spellpower on all my gear. Figuring he was behind on the times, I happily explained to him that I was using the standard gem set up for shield spamming disc priests, which works around the premise that if the majority of what we do is cast shields, then we should stack as much spellpower as possible in order to make our most used spell (Power Word: Shield) absorb more. This is the standard practice advised to shield spammers throughout the priest community, and I’ve advised it here on Spiritual Guidance before as well.

The non-priest still didn’t understand though. He kept insisting “but crit …” which inclined me to gently stroke back his hair and say “there there, poor little confused non-priest, it’s all right.” I allowed him his dignity though, and instead went on with my explanation. I told him that alternative stats like crit and haste didn’t do much for shield spamming since Power Word: Shield can’t crit, and Borrowed Time removes the necessity for haste since the talent carries us down to the 1 second GCD soft cap whenever we cast Power Word: Shield. The non-priest still didn’t understand, so I explained to him that a disc priest’s primary interest in crit was Divine Aegis, a talent which applies a second shield whenever one of your spells crits. “But shields don’t crit,” I reiterated. “The heal from the Glyph of Power Word: Shield can, but that would only add say … 500 extra absorption from Divine Aegis. The spellpower is still better.”

As I typed out those last words, they boomeranged back and hit me square in the face. Startled, I peeled the sans serif off my nose and and reexamined the limp letters in my hands. Suddenly I wondered, “is that really true?”

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Spiritual Guidance: Shield spam and Divine Aegis, a theorycrafting story originally appeared on WoW.com on Sun, 05 Sep 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: The ever-changing Holy Shield

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With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge — and soon, an entire flight of black dragons. Please send screenshots as well as any comments to gregg@wow.com.

In previous posts, I’ve talked a bit about holy power. Usually, this was in relation to our retribution and holy brothers and sisters. The main reason behind that is … well … protection just didn’t fit well with the system yet. Sure, Blizzard has tried a couple of different things, but to be honest, it has felt kludgy and unpolished.

The main reason behind this rough feeling in protection has been Holy Shield. You see, Blizzard hasn’t quite decided what it is going to do with the ability yet, so we’re kind of stuck. Each patch has a wild redesign to help things fit better into the current mold the developers have for the class, but it just hasn’t fallen into place. Some of the problems players have been having include unfamiliarity with the new holy power system, the lack of a proper UI element to keep track of it and figuring out how to manage the new ability rotations.

Let’s take a look at how our faithful old companion, Holy Shield, has fared thus far in the beta.

Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: The ever-changing Holy Shield

The Light and How to Swing It: The ever-changing Holy Shield originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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