I've been wondering how much hate this generates for a while... a few people in my guild seem to always use it as a "low aggro" heal during razorgore, but logically I'd think it'd generate as much hate as a heal equal to the possible absorption... so any time the shield timer runs out you'd have generated "extra" aggro the equivalent heal wouldn't have, making it better to use renew than PW:S for the fight.... but then again, that's just speculation... anyone do any tests regarding the spell?

I would imagine that it's considered to be a heal equal to 50% of the amount absorbed or something, seeing as it's not even nearly as effective as a heal of the same value.

That's how I would do it at least, they could of course be lazy and count it just like a heal.

I seem to remember that you're exactly correct; PW:S counts in terms of threat as a heal for half as much, and is given to the priest when the shield is cast. I always wondered why that was, but you seem to have answered my question for me: since the shield isn't technically guaranteed to heal for the full amount, it doesn't generate threat as if it did.

We did some testing for this, and while I don't remember the exact results (I am reasonably certain Gurgthock does however) PW:S is indeed less agro than a normal heal. In addition healing/shielding yourself causes more hate than performing the same actions on another player.

This test was done about a year ago so its possible they may have changed this since then.

Just for the record, you guys are the only source I've ever seen on this.

By the way, how is PW:S not strictly superior to a heal for the same amount?

Because after 30 seconds it expires, so in the (rather unlikely for high end content) event the target doesn't take 1k damage in 30 seconds your heal was less effective. And you can't really call it overhealing because then the priest would suddenly lose a certain amount of threat when the spell expired.

And you can heal all day long while there's a timer on how often you can shield somebody.

I haven't tested PW:Shield myself. These are excerpts from an old (Feb 2005) post on the priest forums by Remedy of Hyjal about tests she conducted to better understand healing and threat mechanics.

And for resistances, this is an exceprt from a combatlog when we were learning the Twin Emps:

The full Shadow Bolt was 3922 damage, 50% was resisted, and then the PW:Shield absorbed 942 of the remaining damage. If PW:Shield absorbed the damage first, the player would have taken 1490 damage.

A bit silly of me to reply to this old thread, but the last reply was aimed at my previous statement that PW:S is applied before armor/resistances.

I dont particulary read alot about priests business except from what I stumble across during my daily forum browsing, but I am almost 99% sure that at one point after release, Power word shield was changed/nerfed to not consider armor/resistances or something similar when it absorbs its damage.

Now, with that being said, it doesn't necessarily mean that the change is working correctly, nor does it mean that the change actually took place but I'm still quite sure that the HPM of PW:S is terrible enough to try to avoid clicking it too much.

I'm going to search some patch notes, and I´d be happy if someone can clarify this a bit more.

EDIT: Couldn't find anything, maybe I read it somewhere else or maybe I'm just being silly like the silly swede I am.

It definitely takes resistances and armor into account. As an example I present Vaelastrasz.

It's mainly the mana inefficiency that kills PWShield, plus that it barely scales with gear (10% of +dmg/healing).

It's still invaluable in many situations though.

PW:S generates threat equal to half the ammount it absorbs. The threat is generated at the moment PWS is cast. If cast before pull (ooc), no threat from absorbtion is generated.

While we're at threat, anyone knows how much CoS/CoE threat generate? From my experience, I'd say roughly about 200ish, but I was wondering if someone knew the exact figures. Also, does re-appling same curse or replacing it generate additional threat?

Thank you aarkh, maybe I'm not crazy afterall.

For anything threat related, check:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...p=1#post596760

Curses have non-zero threat meaning that the only time you shouldn't cast it is right after a body pull from a warrior, other than that, they hardly generates threat at all (except for CoA ofc).

I'm quite sure a curse will overaggro a gun/bow pull, which made me think it's a fixed value of around 100-200-ish threat. This can easily be checked, but certainly not by lazy ass like me.