Since the 3.3 changes to Divine Sacrifice, the spell has become a much bigger part of my arsenal than it was pre-change. With a two minute cooldown and no need to take, DivSac should become one of your most oft-used spells in Icecrown as you work your way through Arthas’ minions.
But wait, doesn’t DivSac do damage to me?
Yes and no. We’re not really concerned with Divine Sacrifice, per se, but more with the Divine Guardian effect that kicks in when DivSac is activated. If you make a quick cancelaura macro from DivSac like so:
#showtooltip Divine Sacrifice
/cancelaura Divine Sacrifice
/cast Divine Sacrifice
… and then hit it twice in rapid succession you’ll turn on DivSac, then off (cancelling any damage), but Divine Guardian will stick and the whole raid will benefit from the 20% damage reduction effect.
Best times to pop DivSac in Icecrown
This list may or may not just turn into a list of high raid damage moments in ICC boss fights–though, six of one, half dozen of the other, I suppose. In any case, I’ll update this list when I see more of the boss fights.
Marrowgar
- During a bonestorm
- When two or more healers get spiked
Lady Deathwhisper
- When the exploding ghosts spawn
Deathbringer Saurfang
- When tanking DBS during the sub-30% frenzy period. Damage you take it carried across to anyone with a Mark, so you want to minimize how much damage you–and they–take.
Stinky
- Right after a decimate so the next pulse of his aura doesn’t hurt as much
Festergut
- When Festergut is casting his exhale to do the massive raid-wide damage. Helps if anyone missed an inoculation.
Rotface
- During an ooze explosion, in case rockets hit anyone
Professor Putricide
- Right before a green slime reaches its target and knocks everyone into the air. Proper stacking minimizes damage, but applying the Divine Guardian effect on top of that can’t hurt.
Blood Council
- If using a ranged tank, during their turn, while Keleseth is casting an Empowered Shadow Lance
- If an Empowered Conjured Flame looks like it’s getting too close to too many ranged at once
Blood Queen Lana’thiel
- When she goes up in the air and starts casting bloodbolts at people
When used correctly, and at the most optimal times, Divine Sacrifice/Guardian can give your healers some much needed breathing room. Depending on the moment, DivSac can even help prevent wipes. Use it like the dead vote in Chicago, early and often.
I never specced devine sacrifice, because I’m still living by the idea that it’s better in the hands of a ret-paladin, combined with devine shield, which I’ll of course could never pop (well not for longer then a fraction anyway in very rare occasions, like when feared or something).
Anyway, can you explain this a bit more? The way you describe it it almost sounds like an exploid: the raid get’s the reduction, but you don’t get the damage, or am I misinterpreting it now? Because it does sound incredibly useful now.
The description states that the effect only works “when divine sacrifice is active”, so I would assume that the effect will be gone if you cancel that aura. So if it does work, that text has been a bit misleading.
@Rhidach
We’re not really concerned about Divine Sacrifice except as a means to an end. Don’t worry about having to bubble and use DivSac, we’re just turning that on (and immediately off) to activate Divine Guardian. Divine Guardian will stay up even when Divine Sacrifice is off–ignore the description, I have logs to prove it stays up.
Every tank should have Divine Sacrifice. It’s a 20% damage reduction cooldown on a 2 minute timer. And it doesn’t just work for you, but for the entire raid.
It’s probably impossible to get for raiding Ret pallies as they’d have to suffer a dps hit to get that far down into the prot tree. It’s more amenable to “bubble spec” Holy paladins.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Medivh&n=vorianloken
i am not sacrificing any dps talents to get DivSac in my ret spec :)
the only thing i arguably drop is the AP debuff but i rarely raid as dps so it’s not a concern for me
@Rhidach
Oh woops, I meant Divine Guardian. That’d require 17 points in the prot tree, which I bet is a tall order for a ret pally.
What about the risk of taking big raid AOE hit exactly between the on/off switching of the divine sacrifice? Considering possible lag, or high latency and the small 6 second window of effectiveness. As it only stops at 20% health, it sounds like this could get you killed by the first following (melee) hit, or perhaps your own part of the AOE hit, if not very well timed. Though I’m assuming you didn’t have any problems with that yourself, unpredicatble things like the exploding ghosts sound risky.
@Rhidach
If you turn off Divine Sacrifice immediately you won’t take any damage. There is literally no downside to using a macro to put up the Divine Guardian effect.