Hey,
I know there have been threads about this. I’ve been looking at them but, there are many and they say different things.
here is one that gives decent explanation and arrives at something definitive. However, equally as many threads on these forums, mmochamp and reddit say difference things.
Lets make this thread the one that people can come to and get both sides of the argument for both talents.
When do you use Blessed Hammer?
When do you use Holy Shield?
Is one better in dungeons and the other better in raids?
I see a lot of people saying they stick to Holy shield but https://www.wowhead.com/guides/protection-paladin-uldir-raid-tips-bfa#raid-tips-taloc is showing me that an overwhelming % run Blessed Hammer on all the Uldir bosses.
After I read one thing I immediately find another that contradicts it. I’d really like to hear people’s specific situational uses for the 2 talents. Ive been running Holy Shield for all of BFA so far and have been doing all M+. Now I’m messing around in Uldir and wondering if Blessed Hammer would make me less spikey.
Thank you!
The math in that post is wrong. I wouldn’t rely on it. An assumption of 20% BH uptime is absurdly low.
Generally BH vs HS is a bit more complicated than other talent choices. BH is clearly better defensively vs. bosses with primary auto attacks like Mother or Zek’voz. But it’s worse for non-auto attack/special attack damage like Fetid Thrash tank.
You can also use Blessed Hammer for parsing especially in scenarios where it will hit multiple targets or hit the boss ~3 times. This is what you’re seeing in the WoWHead data you linked. Especially on the early bosses, most people are going for parses and using Blessed Hammer.
Holy Shield is far more general purpose and what I would recommend if you have zero knowledge of a given situation. It can cover far more damage patterns than Blessed Hammer.
In terms of spikeyness, Paladin by its nature is very spikey. Unlike a Monk or Druid, you will take unmitigated hits and the skill check is playing around that. Holy Shield will make you less vulnerable to spike since a block will leave with higher heath making you easier to top off.
For Uldir, I’ve been running Blessed Hammer, mostly because I feel comfortable with the damage pattern and I would prefer to push damage for faster boss kills.
Can you please explain what you mean by “parses”?
Would it be beneficial to run Blessed hammer in Mythic+? -12% on auto attack damage sounds like it would really help with large packs. Would it -12% the auto damage from each mob in a pack of say 5?
Parses are just DPS rankings on Warcraft Logs.
It depends on the dungeon. Freehold is mostly auto attacks so BH could work there. You can also use BH to blast lower level keys.
Yes, Blessed Hammer can hit multiple mobs. Blessed Hammer only affects their next auto attack. It has to be continuously reapplied to get the benefit of the damage reduction.
I don’t think I’d ever take BH for higher keys where your primary job is to stay alive. With bigger packs you get so many GC procs that you should be spending GCDs on AS/Judgement instead. Plus blocking spells is just super good when someone misses an interrupt.
If you’re just going to damage in a lower key where you’re not going to die anyway, then yeah I’d take BH (and often do).
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Ok thanks, I’ve been running HS all BFA mythic+ and I’ll cintinue to do so. But it sounds like I should try out BH in raids.