Without wanting to prolong this much further, couldn't you therefore DS PvP/PvE, saving yourself 100-200g per week, and have the guild bank continue to pay you for raid respecs? Or if they are insisting that your DS is used for raid utility, and that PvP/PvE respecs are out your own pocket, surely the 1000g should come from GB?

That said, I cannot abide PvP myself (*sob* WTB libram...) so I await DS with joy in my heart ;-)

I had a debate (OK, argument) with a guildie last night who thought DS should be up to 10 specs at 100g each. The thought of 25 people trying to coordinate a spec-per-boss setup gave me nightmares. And while some may use 4-spec for ret/holy PvP/PvE, others would go with per-boss specializations, and we start down the path to raid-management hell. Not to mention raid balancing issues.

The carryover beyond 6 seconds in fights where AOE is less frequent than 6 seconds is epic for recoil reduction. I do have a question, however. With standard ability you cannot consta-proc. If shield bursts below 6 seconds you wait out internal cooldown, then new can proc. If shield is unused after 6 seconds, it drops, then new can proc.

Talented, if burst below 6 seconds, wait out internal CD. If not burst, can the improved-length shield consta-proc? Shield procs at time 0 for (random easy number) 2000 absorbtion. Blow at time 3 eats 200 (1800 remains), you take 0. Blow at time 6 eats 1400 (400 remains), you take 0. Blow at time 8 eats 600 and is reduced by remainder (400), you take 200. Does this 200 immediately proc a new shield? Based on normal mechanics I'd guess "yes", but would like confirmation from someone who has used it on PTR.

If true that's ridiculously powerful absorbtion and far more useful than untalented (6 seconds). Rather than having to take an entirely unmitigated outside source (full damage) to proc and absorb for 6 seconds, you can take overflow from mitigated damage. That would mean overall less inbound damage total on a fight than 6 seconds could possibly provide.

^THIS. You guys can argue all you like, but specing into holy is pointless since we're not going to have mana issues any more and SoR is useless in any situation. That essentially leaves only prot. 0/17/54 is the way to go for PvE, because the choice is between a little more utility or crap you'll never need.

Consider the dead horse beaten... You have time to holy wrath now, so you'll have time to cast a shield on yourself. You have more than enough open GCDs to make it happen without affecting DPS at all. 100% uptime is going to be very easy unless you're terrible.

Instant FoLs are for saving your life. You're not going to use them every time AoW procs as your healers will keep you topped almost all the time. However, when you're at 1000 health and the healers are busy, it's worth sacrificing a few dps to stay alive, and now that it no longer resets the swing timer you're losing very little in the grand scheme.

Right now you don't even need to take damage to refresh the proc. I could keep up the shield 100% of the time and never take damage when testing on a low level mob.

6 seconds is the internal cooldown on procs (4 sec with holy 4 T8).

In fact, it is good that SS is able to refresh every 6 seconds, while still lasting 12 seconds. That way it doesn't become OP and get nerfed (by stacking) and once Blood has weakened the shield and you take more damage 6 seconds later from all the AoE the shield can get full strength again.

It should, since it's designed to be hit capped and very close to expertise capped (or as a dwarf you can be expertise capped with a Jawbone and possibly be better off than with a Betrayer).

Nice. Definitely increases the value of DG futher due to the 12 sec duration. A low but constant inbound damage situation could provide 100% shield up-time (i.e 100% mitigation). Unatalented 6 second duration, 6 sec internal cooldown meant you would have to take inbound unmitigated damage every 6 seconds to keep it active (i.e. not 100% mitigation).

Even if AOE combined with recoil chews through a shield's maximum protection, I can easily see how we would suddenly drop to the bottom of the list on inbound damage on the Ulduar AOE heavy battles.

I said 20% won't make an appreciable difference. Yes, 20% is 20% more. That is indeed quite obvious. The argument being bandied about, however, is that 'dead pallies do no dps' which is predicated on the notion that the paladin sans DG will DIE because he lacked that 20% buffer. This might happen, eventually, but I wager that if the situation is so bad that you will die without that 20%, the attempt is probably a loss anyway. I stand by my assertion that DG is not going to make an appreciable difference in ret survival.

As for the benefits of the duration you mention-- So essentially DG turns a situational defensive utility buff into yet another button the ret player can thoughtlessly mash on cooldown. And that's good because...? Maybe we should skip DG, just so we have something to think about...

I feel as though the argument about whether or not survivability benefits DPS is straying readers away from why we're considering Divine Guardian as a Retadin talent to begin with.

Assuming that we're here to try and min/max Retribution's DPS, we've pretty much cornered that through 52/54 points in the talent tree. There really aren't any other talents we can aim for to increase our DPS with the exception of Divine Intellect, but the benefits of that talent are so minuscule that using a total of 10 points just to gain the talent seems foolhardy. Other aspects of the class we can focus on could be anything else that would help out in a raid setting aside from our DPS, and the Protection tree offers a nice bag of goodies in that department. Divine Sacrifice is a nice way of preventing raid damage, and Divine Guardian improves both Divine Sacrifice and Sacred Shield, both of which can go a long way in saving your healers' mana on an encounter. There isn't any talent path a Retadin can pick that provides as much raid utility as a Protection subspec. This is probably why 0/17/54 is being seen as the cookie-cutter spec for 3.1. Setting aside the issue of whether or not Divine Guardian will actually increase your DPS on the rare chance that the 20% increase to SS will mean the difference between life and death, the fact that you can benefit your raid through prevented damage and a small buttress for healers is reason enough to take the talent (and if you went far enough into the Protection tree to get Divine Sacrifice, why not boost it further with Divine Guardian? You do get a really nifty bonus to Sacred Shield as well). There seem to be arguments being made for taking PvP-utility talents instead (Divine Purpose), but that's not really cookie-cutter considering the thread we're in.

And also, it's misleading to say that survivability increases DPS. One should say not dying means you won't lose DPS. Dumping points into the Protection tree is just a little, but nifty, insurance policy against an untimely death, which will thus prevent a dip in your damage and help you maintain your e-peen.

You are right, we do need to stop arguing that. Dead DPS = 0. Survivability reduces the chance to die, ergo, reduces the chance that your DPS will drop to 0. What you're saying is like saying we don't need PoJ because it doesn't contribute to DPS. Just because certain talents do not make your attacks hit harder does not mean it is a null increase in DPS.

Sure you can always just blame the healers if you die, but if you were not doing your utmost to survive a fight that you know punishes the DPS, you're just as much at fault.

You're putting words in my mouth. The emboldened piece of your post is also factually false. I am not advocating that you should do nothing to assist in survivability. I still cannot believe despite my proclamation that I will likely spec 0/17/54 and I can see the benefits it offers, in terms of raiding and survivability; that we are going to argue this into minutia. Let me, again, restate the intent of my point:

Please particularly note my comment about DPS maintenance.

Your comparison to PoJ is also wrong. More time spent damaging a target versus moving to engage it results in a damage gain, especially if it results in an earlier start on Vengeance, RV, etc. Your comparison is apples to oranges. With this type discussion, we may as well start comparing the damage gain benefits of Armor versus Crit. There is zero direct correlation. Will more armor allow you to utilize that crit more? Possibly. But the armor itself does not directly result in a DPS gain.

Before you attempt to respond with "Alleyra, that's just crazy, you can't compare armor to crit!" Please go read my previous posts. Read what I'm actually advocating rather than jumping to the knee-jerk reaction of, "Well if you're dead you don't do damage!" Nobody is denying this point. What we are debating is what is a DPS talent and what is a Utility or Survivability talent. DG and DS are the latter. Maximizing our DPS is not dependent on having those talents: their usage is subjective to the raid environment and your raid's composition.

This is the point. Nothing more, nothing less.