PSA: Hand of Sacrifice should be used as a last resort in Legion, if at all

[dyeus]

So this is a pretty interesting, lively debate happening in the HPal discord over the past few days, but it's worth nothing: Hand of Sacrifice Blessing of Sacrifice (BoS) is getting a substantial nerf with the removal of the ability to glyph out the damage transfer component of it, and is likely not worth using as a dependable external cooldown.

There are 2 problems with it:

• If the paladin falls under 20% for any reason -- either other damage or damage from BoS -- the external ends. So depending on the damage and/or health of the paladin, this 12 second cooldown might only last 2-3 seconds.
• If the target receives a lot of spike damage, such as a tank taking heavy damage, there is a very real chance it will kill the paladin. There are already plenty of logs of this happening on Beta, and it's not always healable damage... and even when it is, it requires that paladin to spam self-healing instead of doing something more productive such as healing other people.

This is a list of alternative cooldowns which are always going to be better options than calling for a BoS:

• Life Cocoon (Mistweaver Monk)
• Pain Suppression (Disc Priest)
• Guardian Spirit (Holy Priest)
• Ironbark (Resto Druid)

Bubble-sac is still an option and the safest way of using it, but it also requires the paladin to use their bubbles for a 30% external instead of being able to deal with some other mechanic or ability (where as none of the other external cooldowns mentioned above require such a high cost).

The disagreement is whether to even put it on your bars at all, with some insisting that it's never ok to use in any circumstance (anytime there isn't a real risk of dying, it's a waste of an external cd as the damage clearly isn't that high).

Personally, I still see a value in using it, but I still don't believe that it would ever be appropriate to use if you have one of the other options above available or you're specifically planning an external cd rotation with special emphasis on placing the BoS at a specific time when you know the paladin is safe to use it.

[Thidus]

This is the backlash holy pallies get for being so strong for so long, same as disc priests to where they are almost useless. The only viable situation without the glyph is to use bubble with sac otherwise it risks killing a healer and in progression that might as well be a wipe in most bosses if its cutting edge. Without using bubble I dont see it being an option at all tbh, but hey im a ret and we dont have sac anymore at all huehuehue. hopefully there are more than one fight where bop is useful, and even then having a niche spell for a certain boss is lame design to make the spell usefull where as a dmg reduction spell is good on all fights. Either way it seems this expac blizz is gonna write off a lot of classes as ok even though they are not and fix them next expac........ um well if they try to fix them lol gg's class fantasy>gamplay/viability (stares and ret holy wrath)

[dyeus]

This is the backlash holy pallies get for being so strong for so long

Funnily enough, Holy Paladins are shaping up to be pretty good in Legion... we just don't have a dependable external CD anymore

[Thidus]

Well they have to be good since they dont have a reliable dmg reduction spell. Guess it comes down to boss mechanics and whether or not they are mandatory like mythic tyrant progression at first. Just pray i guess like i am for ret :S

[Riotgrrl]

I'm not one to talk on forums much at all but i figured i'd throw my 2 cents, I speak mostly from personal experience so take it with a grain of salt.
Glyph of Sacrifice was indeed very popular all through WoD for both Holy and Rets, yet I myself never used it on the fights that mattered, not because it was bad, but because it just wasn't needed, and i felt i could get more out of extra mana from LoH, or that extra cleanse, EFextra self heal on BRF, or 10% more from Flashes. those are not must have or awesome glyphs, but i never considered Sac to be one either.
If a tank needs an external, then you're going to sac, period. If the tank dies it's usually game over, even if brez are available, specially in progression it's probably already too late anyways. if the healer dies, there's still a chance, and can be rezzed with less of a penalty. with the logic of losing health you can follow the same logic of, Light of Martyr is just not worth it, what if you're casting, and then u get a spike and u were too low from it, yes you gotta be smart about using it, but really is not that big of a deal, we do have 15% more health from "righteousness" than other healers.

Last Tuesday, we were doing our regular Myth hfc clear, and I wanted to actually try out Martyr to see how dangerous in fact was our health. i started spamming it and i never got below 75% from it, there's constant input from Aoe, Hots, and what nots from your fellow healers that it just wasn't happening. I don't mean to say Legion is going to be like that, we're on farm after all, but i do mean that if the tank took a hit big enough to drop u to 20%, then A, It was probably a good thing he had sac on, and B, you will recover.

Either way, yes it sucks we dont have the glyph, it's cool to have that free external, and it's also cool to have the choice of using the glyph or not. But it really isn't that big of a deal, and sac must still be used with frequency, defensives are great

[dyeus]

I tend to agree with a lot of your points, and IMO many of the paladins (including Jeathebelle) are making a way too big a deal out of it (e.g. promising to spam Sac on CD and die to petition Blizzard to show how bad of a change it is). There are smart/dumb ways to use it, and a good paladin will find a way to be smart about it. And yea, I too spent a bit of WoD playing around with removing the glyph because it felt like a wasted slot.

That being said, the problem is it's always going to be worse than any other cooldown I mentioned above because of the inherent risk. Barkskin is always going to be safer than a Sac because the druid can use it regardless of the druid's health and it's irrelevant what other mechanics the druid is dealing with at the time so long as the druid is in range of the tank to use it. If the raid is out of other cooldowns, I wholeheartedly agree, use the Sac and even if the holy paladin dies, it's still going to be better than a tank dying. My point is that Sac shouldn't be anybody's first go-to cooldown for a tank, but the last.

ATM, I'm taking Beta-testers' word that in Legion, the damage is sufficient that makes Hand of Sac inherently risky ... as I still don't have beta access. If the damage spikes on Live are the same as Beta, I'd just delete this post entirely because it's not an issue, but I'm under the belief that damage patterns change significantly in Legion.

Light of Martyr is just not worth it, what if you're casting, and then u get a spike and u were too low from it, yes you gotta be smart about using it, but really is not that big of a deal, we do have 15% more health from "righteousness" than other healers.

Ugh, don't get me started on LotM. I love that spell and took Holy Light off my bars and just put LotM there -- I don't see any reason why I'd ever cast Holy Light instead of LotM. It's an amazing spell: instant, low mana cost, and big heal. And yet, the common thought is that "one should only use it if the person is going to die before you could cast a heal, otherwise it's never worth it" based on a net HPS calculation (they're subtracting the damage it does to you from the heal it does to them and saying it's a crappy heal... a completely wrong way to think about it).

Very good points though, appreciate the input!

[Cerastes]

Fun fact, prot warrior, and all warriors for that matter, don't have vigilance anymore

[dyeus]

Fun fact, prot warrior, and all warriors for that matter, don't have vigilance anymore

Updated, thanks. I swear I read somewhere that prot warrior kept it. Oh well.

[Cerastes]

Nah, all specs lost it. Prot kept the taunt mechanic in a talent called Warlord's Challenge when they use Berserker Rage though.

[Rainess]

It will be interesting to see how many top world guilds bring in a Holy Paladin for Legion progression. I think with the martyr style of healing with no mobility, and no good raid/tank CD's (beside devo) is going to hurt us in progression. Its almost a guarantee that a holy paladin will die casting Sac in a Legion progression fight. Who wants to waste a rez on that when there are better alternatives in heavy progression fights if your competing for world/Countries/Realm 1 first titles.

I don't believe Holy Paladins are in a doom and gloom state like everyone on the forums makes us out to be. We are strong tank healers, and the numbers are there. We do need some TLC with our patched up tool kit. Everything I stated above will hurt paladins in top end raiding.

Good Post Dyeus! Its nice to see the EK's Holy Paladin community getting together and having discussions:)