D.Sac. - how useful is it really?Follow

As the title says, just how useful is Divine Sacrifice really? I am asking this from a Protection/main tank's point of view.

I know it can be very useful in certain hard modes and such, from either a Holy or Ret Paladin, but what about for a casual guild who isn't really interested in getting into hard modes and the like? And from a MT, how many times would 'I' get to use this ability in a raid?

I've been going through some builds for this patch to respec my Paladin. The first doesn't take D.Sac under the premise that I wouldn't use it, and instead goes for some additional threat:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?paladin=040000000000000000000000000500503502311231133331232150230200200000000000000000&glyph=071724050401&version=10116

The second one takes D.Sac assuming it would get used:

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?paladin=000000000000000000000000000502513522310231133331232150230200200000000000000000&glyph=071724050401&version=10116

Also, I'm assuming this would most often be used in conjunction with Divine Protection not Divine Shield (keep in mind, MT). How does the damage the Paladin would take compare while under this spell combo to the damage they take without Divine Protection up? I know it would vary from fight to fight, but on average?

Thanks Loki. It's been slow going for my guild and I've been taking some time off recently, so Ulduar hasn't been a huge deal yet. I'm hoping as summer starts getting closer to its end that things will pick up though, or that maybe we can get some people from recruiting, to where Ulduar (then following raids as well) will be a bigger focus. I think following your list here, when I come back, I will take the D.Sac build and play around with it.

Again, my thanks, and if anyone has more to add please feel free :)

With the exception of the last 3, if you're MT'ing you totally ***** yourself out of the only good mitigation cd we have if you blow Dsac+Bubble. If you find yourself OT'ing/or dpsing as ret for a fight or 2, then Dsac becomes much more useful. As your grp/guild gets more familiar with the fights you'll find yourself using it less and less. With the exception of the last 3 fights, i haven't used Dsac in months in 10 or 25man raids.

The cd i find much more useful is Hand of Sacrifice as you can use this on anyone in the raid every 2min without eating your best tanking cd. Its nice on any tank swap where you can cancel divine plea and heal yourself for a few sec in case the dam is extremely high(Mimiron plasma for instance).

As long as you're not a bad tank, and your healer knows how to play, you should not need to watch Forbearance... I forget I even have Divine Protection except when I feel like saving some healing.

It's almost always better to use Divine Shield anyway.

As of last time I played (yesterday) Divine Shield allowed D-Sac to go on indefinitely (until it's duration ended). In addition to that there are just times when you CANNOT survive without it. Mimi's fire aura is one. It doesn't matter how bad *** your healers are, it's too much damage to heal through without cool downs.

KT's AoE frost bolt is too much damage to survive.

Saph's frost aura is a lot of incoming damage.

The list goes on and on. If you're going to use the ability, negate the damage. In most cases you can do so with 0 risk anyway.

I know this isnt in a raid but in 5man ToC the last phase of the Black Knight boss where he starts hitting everyone with that magic aoe damage is a golden opportunity to use it too. I have only speced one point into it for my Prot talent spec but I notice the difference (and so do the healers) when I use this in combination with divine protection. Same with the Voidwalker looking boss in heroic Violet Hold that starts shelling out serious aoe damage as the fight persists.

As far as Ulduar I have used it to great effect with hand of Sacrifice on Mimi (as the offtank) in his first phase when he hits the MT with that spell that does a huge amount of damage before the aoe nova. Sorry for the obscure spell descriptions.