I agree with previous posters Sacred Shield is situational but then as a healer all our abilities are situational. What separates a good healer from a bad one is their choice of the appropriate spell for the job and Sacred Shield adds another tool to the toolbox.

My biggest issue with Sacred Shield in raids, given that we typically run with more than 2 paladins, is that it's really hard to analyze exactly how useful it was. I've been trying to analyze the contribution using the absorb amounts but it's still crude to put it mildly.

Anyone have a better approach to analyzing it's raid effectiveness?

I'd agree with your sentiment mostly, but during any sort of movement you should be refreshing beacon/judgements/seals. If your moving longer then that and have time to refresh SS... your moving really far haha. My guild just managed to kill Sarth+3 drakes, and its probably the most active movement fight yet still requires more proactive healing during that movement then any other fight i've ever done. The movement itself is similar to Lurker Below, in constantly having to move around, but during Lurker the tank didn't really need any heals.

In terms of content difficulty, I am hoping we see more Sarth+3 fights than anything else because it was actually a difficult fight for a healer like myself used to planting himself in a safe spot and shooting out holy lights from my face.

I guess the argument I was making got detracked a few times. I am not arguing that SS has some benefit for situations like 5-mans, or pvp or what not. I was arguing for 25 man uses, if you look back at my original post, I said that this ability could be so much better if they merely changed a few aspects of it.

I am not dense in thinking that a 2k shield is not useful for healing/increasing survival of a main tank. I am however certain that I can keep up a tank up safely without this mediocre (in the best situations) ability.

Once you have seal, judgement and beacon refreshed, and he got hit right before you landed your last heal that healed him to full, give me one good reason to not cast SS. There isn't. While SS might not be the "omg amazing" spell, it's more help than harm to cast it (when not done stupidly).

This is pretty much the case. Use it when you have nothing better to do, but not over anything else.

Assume that a tank gets hit for 10000 every 2 seconds, and you're the primary MT healer. Assume starting at full HP with SS on. The order of events is like this:

0:000 - Hit for 10k. Tank HP is Max - 10k. SS is up.
0:010 - You Holy Light crit for 15.5k (because you're a pre-casting pro). Slight overheal, but it was a crit, and you'd ordinarily heal for 10k so HL was a good call. Tank HP is Max.
0:020 - Hit for 10k, 2k absorbed. Tank HP is Max - 8k. SS does not go up due to CD.

Now, after your first heal, you have to make a choice. Cast FOL, which will crit, or cast HL. Let's look at the options.

FoL crits for 6k, you end up with a 2k tank HP deficit.
HL hits for 10k, you end up with a 2k overheal but spend way more mana. Let's assume the FOL route

0:023 - You Flash of Light crit for 6k. Tank HP is Max - 2k.
0:036 - You Flash of Light for 4k. Tank HP is Max
0:040 - Hit for 10k. Tank HP is Max - 10k
0:054 - You Holy Light for 10k. Tank HP is max
0:060 - Hit for 10k. Tank HP is Max - 10k. SS goes up
0:072 - You Holy Light for 10k. Tank HP is max.
0:080 - Hit for 10k, 2k absorbed. Tank HP is Max - 8k.

Now you find yourself back in the same situation. You need 2 FoLs to top the tank off after the second hit, or one Holy Light.

So the question is, do you roll SS and cast the extra FoLs, or just say fuck it and cast the Holy Light? Which is better for mana? Which is better for survivability? Keeping in mind the GCD from SS and all that jazz, I still prefer to just go the HL route.

Speaking as a (somewhat undergeared) tank, the choice to use or not to use Sacred Shield could also depend on what kind of tank you're running with in the first place.

And by "what kind of tank," I mean paladin tanks, specifically. In my badge gear, I am at 94.79% Miss Dodge Parry Block (MDPB) with Holy Shield up, leaving me at 5.21% chance per hit to proc Sacred Shield's absorption buff at all, or roughly once every 20 attacks. With my gear, if attacks land every 2 seconds, Sacred Shield will proc once every 40 seconds, or 0.75 times per cast. Assuming a shield value of 2000, that's 1500 damage shielded every cast on me. Paladin tanks with better gear will continue to drag the yield down at a rapid rate until they reach 102.4% MDPB (which may or may not be attainable right now, I forget,) at which point the cast is a complete and total waste.

Of course, if magic damage is involved in the fight, the aforementioned math becomes irrelevant and Sacred Shield becomes effective again on a paladin tank.

On a completely different note, Sacred Shield will absorb the backlash damage of Seal of Blood, but said backlash damage cannot trigger the shield.

EDIT: Typo

Blocked attacks don't trigger SS?

Correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that any hostile damage could proc the shield. Even procs like ret aura are effected by blocked damage.

That is one minor aspect that I like in terms of 5 man tank healing - the tank still takes damage before the proc (giving them some rage for warriors and druids, hp to be healed for paladins) and doesn't interfere as a priest bubble would for starting threat.

Only time a block won't damage a tank is when his BV exceeds the incoming damage. AKA never when fighting a raid boss.

When you block a 10000 hit, and your block value is 1000, 9000 damage is coming thru to tank. Target took damage, SS is procced.

As an aside, I like to toss SS on everyone on my side during Gothik, hilarious to see 10+ people with shield up at once, and it really does cover the bulk of healing needed.

When the aoe damage is either light or infrequent, it's usually easier to heal it up with fol/hl than ss.

I dont think anyone is arguing that SS is a replacement for healing, only that it is good enough to warrant the gcd when damage is light.

I use SS when im otherwise useless, like on trash in Naxx, on the gargoyles, which apply a stacking DOT debuff. SS rotation throughout the raid is my *random* and rather useless way to help raid heal... but its better than going around using FOL on people and stealing a druid's HOT ticks.

SS has no practical use in raids if youre looking to get the extra 50% FOL crit, since the tanks always get hit for more than a mere 2k (in which case you need to HL anyway), so the 50% crit buff is both gone, and you shouldnt even use FOL. *note* what pallies dont just SPAM HL anyway?!

I occasionally SS myself so i dont have to worry about taking an extra tick of an AOE, because I like to let my heal land before i move. (ex: archavon)