Shield Warrior Priest underperformance even with BiS gear

[kpihuss]

Hate to say it, but Hazmy right.
It's amazing how guy poorly play SCs and present it as evidence.

You are right, only my data as evidence is not enought, so i extract 4 SC Weekend from the Killboard.

I expanded the Shield WP analysis using four different periods, to avoid the result depending on a single week or on too small a sample.

Code: Select all

Periods analyzed:
22-05-2026 to 26-05-2026
29-05-2026 to 02-06-2026
05-06-2026 to 07-06-2026
12-06-2026 to 15-06-2026

In those four periods, the estimated presence of Shield WP was:

Code: Select all

Period             Deaths read   Active WPs   Estimated Shield WPs   % Shield WP
22-05 to 26-05     175,617       520          28                     5.38%
29-05 to 02-06     179,994       536          28                     5.22%
05-06 to 07-06     117,746       419          18                     4.30%
12-06 to 15-06     175,495       539          24                     4.45%

This does not prove by itself that the spec is bad, but it does show that Shield WP is an extremely minor spec. Week after week, it appears at around 4.3% to 5.4% of the active WPs detected.

Maybe this is due to the average player’s perception of the low performance of this spec.

Methodology

To avoid mixing Shield WP with Book WP, I applied several filters.

First, I only used level 40+ players. Second, I only used players with at least 3 total valid scenarios. Third, I discarded scenarios where the damage did not fit a shield build.

The criterion used to validate a scenario as Shield WP was:

Code: Select all

WP damage >= 20% of the average damage of the active DPS players in the same scenario

If the damage was too low, that scenario was discarded, because the player was probably playing book, had changed spec, or had no real melee uptime.

For the comparison against Book WP, I used level 40+ WPs classified as healers, with a valid healer ranking, not classified as shield in that scenario, and excluding possible DPS WPs. To avoid contaminating the book group, I discarded cases where damage was too high compared to healing.

Shield WP: filtered total sample

With those filters, the Shield WP sample is:

Code: Select all

Filtered valid scenarios: 322
Unique players: 18
Winrate: 57.5%

Healing/min: 11.99k
Healing to others/min: 8.77k
Total protection: 35.70k
Self-protection: 22.99k
Protection to others: 12.71k
Protection received: 33.51k
Average deaths: 1.91

Damage vs active DPS: 41.7%
Kill damage vs active DPS: 34.1%
Average deathblows: 0.57

Compared against the healers in their same scenarios:

Code: Select all

Healing/min: 76.6% of other healers
Protection to others: 70.5% of other healers
Protection received: 247.5% of other healers
Deaths: 189.7% of other healers
Self-protection over total protection: 64.4%

The pattern is clear: less healing, less real protection to teammates, much more protection received, and almost twice as many deaths.

Direct comparison: Shield WP vs Book WP

The direct comparison against Book WP is the most important one, because it compares two ways of playing the same class.

Code: Select all

Group        Scenarios   Players   Winrate
Shield WP    322         18        57.5%
Book WP      5,756       338       53.3%

Code: Select all

Metric                          Shield WP     Book WP       Shield vs Book
Healing/min                     11.99k        13.58k        88.3%
Healing to others/min            8.77k        11.80k        74.3%
Average total healing          100.31k       114.11k        87.9%
Average healing to others       73.41k        99.14k        74.1%

Total protection                35.70k        39.60k        90.2%
Self-protection                 22.99k        15.47k       148.7%
Protection to others            12.71k        24.13k        52.7%
Protection received             33.51k        14.29k       234.5%

Average deaths                   1.91          1.04        183.2%
Resurrections                    0.34          1.04         32.8%

Damage vs active DPS average     41.7%          4.6%
Kill damage vs active DPS avg    34.1%          2.9%

The result is not simply that Shield WP heals less than Book WP. That would be expected.

The problem is the whole tradeoff:

Code: Select all

Shield WP compared to Book WP:
Healing/min: 88.3%
Healing to others/min: 74.3%
Protection to teammates: 52.7%
Protection received: 234.5%
Deaths: 183.2%
Resurrections: 32.8%

In exchange, Shield WP does considerably more damage than Book WP, but its damage is still far from real DPS output:

Code: Select all

Total damage: 41.7% of an average active DPS
Kill damage: 34.1% of an average active DPS

So this does not look like “less healer in exchange for half a DPS”. It looks more like less useful support, much higher defensive dependency, more deaths, and limited offensive pressure.

Healing by RR bracket: shield vs book

I also separated healing by RR brackets. This comparison is per scenario participation.

Code: Select all

RR        Shield SCs   Book SCs   Shield heal/min   Book heal/min   Shield vs Book   Shield heal others/min   Book heal others/min   Shield vs Book
40-49     19           356        8.71k             9.33k           93.3%            5.96k                    7.87k                  75.7%
50-59     26           645        8.51k             11.46k          74.3%            5.90k                    9.69k                  60.9%
60-69     109          853        9.51k             11.93k          79.8%            6.31k                    10.18k                 61.9%
70-79     27           1,413      10.36k            12.59k          82.3%            8.19k                    10.77k                 76.1%
80+       137          2,477      15.47k            15.92k          97.2%            11.85k                   14.11k                 84.0%

There is an important nuance here: at RR80+, Shield WP gets very close to Book WP in total healing per minute, reaching 97.2%.

But even at RR80+, useful healing to others is still lower:

Code: Select all

RR80+:
Shield WP healing/min: 97.2% of Book WP
Shield WP healing to others/min: 84.0% of Book WP

This suggests that Shield WP scales better with high RR and good gear, but even in the high RR bracket it still loses useful healing to other players.

Protection and survivability by RR

The defensive side remains the biggest problem.

Code: Select all

RR        Shield prot. others   Book prot. others   Shield vs Book   Shield prot. received   Book prot. received   Shield vs Book   Shield deaths   Book deaths
40-49     11.00k                19.21k             57.3%            30.44k                  10.11k                301.1%           3.00            1.53
50-59     9.23k                 19.74k             46.8%            24.06k                  15.88k                151.6%           3.08            1.44
60-69     7.84k                 21.94k             35.8%            31.41k                  13.72k                229.0%           2.55            1.33
70-79     14.54k                24.25k             59.9%            28.53k                  14.97k                190.6%           1.33            1.17
80+       17.28k                26.70k             64.7%            38.85k                  14.23k                273.1%           1.08            0.69

This is probably the most important table.

Even at RR80+, where Shield WP heals quite close to Book WP, it still provides only 64.7% of the protection to teammates and receives 273.1% of the external protection.

In other words, the problem does not disappear at high RR. Healing improves, but the defensive cost does not disappear.

Weekly comparison: shield vs book

The weekly comparison also keeps the same pattern.

Code: Select all

Period 05-06:
Shield healing/min vs book: 86.1%
Protection to others: 49.1%
Protection received: 258.2%
Deaths: 211.7%

Period 12-06:
Shield healing/min vs book: 85.0%
Protection to others: 58.0%
Protection received: 247.2%
Deaths: 177.6%

Period 22-05:
Shield healing/min vs book: 132.5%
Protection to others: 66.7%
Protection received: 300.1%
Deaths: 114.7%

Period 29-05:
Shield healing/min vs book: 80.3%
Protection to others: 47.6%
Protection received: 204.1%
Deaths: 178.4%

The 22-05 week is the best case for Shield WP, because it heals more than Book WP. But even in that week, it protects others less, receives three times more external protection, and dies more.

Conclusion

After analyzing four weeks, filtering only level 40+ players, using a minimum threshold of 3 total valid scenarios, discarding scenarios where damage does not fit Shield WP, and comparing directly against Book WP, my conclusion is:

Shield WP is not unplayable, but its practical efficiency seems poor compared to the defensive cost it requires.

The spec can work, especially at high RR and under good conditions. In fact, at RR80+, total healing/min gets fairly close to Book WP.

But the problem is not only total healing. The problem is the whole package:

• It is an extremely minor spec: around 4-5% of detected active WPs.
• It heals other players less than Book WP.
• It provides much less real protection to teammates.
• Its total protection is heavily inflated by self-protection.
• It receives much more external protection.
• It dies considerably more.
• It resurrects much less.
• And the damage it brings does not reach real DPS output.

So the problem is not that Shield WP can never get good numbers. The problem is that, compared against Book WP, the tradeoff does not seem efficient: too much useful support is lost and too many defensive resources are consumed in exchange for limited offensive pressure.

That is why I think Shield WP deserves a review.

[kpihuss]

Please try again this build :
(Made it thanks to Rydiak guide)

The Base heal from these abilities can critically hit and uses Melee/Magic Crit for its crit chance and Critical Damage modifier to the critical heals.

Str is like willpower and Mcrit is Hcrit ; you want Mcrit before anything
RoR.builders - Warrior Priest
Renown

Divine Warding tactic is a must have, adds tons of protection
That way you can go full heal tactics
Pious Restoration and Sig's Shield are really great, can't go without (!)
Word of Wisdom is even more useful for shield spec than Book (but costs too much fury imo)
I don't think you should care for healdebuff after patch
Last advice : always play with Prayer of Absolution

You should see a huge improvement of your numbers
Anyway, shield spec sure has flaws in pvp (especially solo tag sc)
Dev will prob add few buff in the future, there are still many unbalanced classes
Gear rework otw, maybe warlord will match sov and shield set will have better hybrid bonuses

Agree on everything you said @Mvl130 ;
Shield is really harder to play tho, prob cauz before it was mostly aoe heal party spam
Healdebuff is also a huge downside now, since distance healers can avoid it more
On the other side, class is more fun and can do huge numbers in blob (like old sham Fotg)
Just lacks few more stuff, like a speed proc/spell
Ngl 1 Am = 3 shield wp

Thanks! I used Pious Restoration for a long time, but the problem I found was that it healed very little each tick (around 200 HP), and I found the cost on RF investment excessively high for that, especially considering that I have to spend every RF point on Sigmar's Will.

Regarding Divine Warding, I also used it, but I still don't like it. Since I have low melee and healing critical strike chance (6% and 8% respectively), and the tactic has a 3-second internal cooldown, I can't find a way to replace the four tactics I'm using (Exalted Defenses, Shield of Faith, Fueled Fury, and Grace of Sigmar).

Kpi ponte una guardia, primer aviso.

Wow, amazing post, great data set, awesome methology (if you adress flows Omegus pointed out or precisely speaking fix colcusions you made out of that data).

However, its very sad that you didnt consult anyone beforehand doing this hell of a job (could have at least pm Halta/Rydiak/Iyvan beforehand and share what you plan to do, they would definitely help out at least as consultants). You had suboptimal spec and according to what ive seen from destro pov previous weekend extremely suboptimal (none) group comp.

I swear i would save up all your data if you'd correctly process the experiment Really, awesome efforts, kudos but such a bad luck it has fundamental flows right on start

Spoiler:

Please try again this build :
(Made it thanks to Rydiak guide)

The Base heal from these abilities can critically hit and uses Melee/Magic Crit for its crit chance and Critical Damage modifier to the critical heals.

Str is like willpower and Mcrit is Hcrit ; you want Mcrit before anything
RoR.builders - Warrior Priest
Renown

Divine Warding tactic is a must have, adds tons of protection
That way you can go full heal tactics
Pious Restoration and Sig's Shield are really great, can't go without (!)
Word of Wisdom is even more useful for shield spec than Book (but costs too much fury imo)
I don't think you should care for healdebuff after patch
Last advice : always play with Prayer of Absolution

You should see a huge improvement of your numbers
Anyway, shield spec sure has flaws in pvp (especially solo tag sc)
Dev will prob add few buff in the future, there are still many unbalanced classes
Gear rework otw, maybe warlord will match sov and shield set will have better hybrid bonuses

Agree on everything you said @Mvl130 ;
Shield is really harder to play tho, prob cauz before it was mostly aoe heal party spam
Healdebuff is also a huge downside now, since distance healers can avoid it more
On the other side, class is more fun and can do huge numbers in blob (like old sham Fotg)
Just lacks few more stuff, like a speed proc/spell
Ngl 1 Am = 3 shield wp

Literally this /thread

Thank you! I usually do this during work breaks or in the little bits of free time I have.

I really enjoy researching the killboard and analyzing the stats in general, and I think that maybe sharing this with the team and the players could help them see things from different perspectives.

I didn't want to ask other players, more out of embarrassment than anything else... whenever I see a shielded wing player, I start talking to them, and I come across as a stalker

[Mortgrimm]

I just made some time to check the killboard @kpi for sc´s and skirmish.
My biggest concern, as mentioned above already, is not the healing but the dmg.
Your healing is round half of the book priests. In my opinion this is kinda okay. But the dmg should be much higher. Maybe that´s the true problem with this build in general. Should be 50/50 or 40/60, not 20/80.
All comes down to the play style and the circumstances ofc. I´m not really a healer myself. That´s why I love the ... build as u stay in front line, do dmg and heal.
No one should expect running as shield priest means tanky tank with pure heal output, survivability and dmg. If so, there is something wrong in first place.

[kpihuss]

I just made some time to check the killboard @kpi for sc´s and skirmish.
My biggest concern, as mentioned above already, is not the healing but the dmg.
Your healing is round half of the book priests. In my opinion this is kinda okay. But the dmg should be much higher. Maybe that´s the true problem with this build in general. Should be 50/50 or 40/60, not 20/80.
All comes down to the play style and the circumstances ofc. I´m not really a healer myself. That´s why I love the ... build as u stay in front line, do dmg and heal.
No one should expect running as shield priest means tanky tank with pure heal output, survivability and dmg. If so, there is something wrong in first place.

Before the patch, I used to play it the way you described.

1050 strength and around 30-35% melee critical hit rate (I don't remember exactly), almost a glass cannon. I could offset the damage I took with the healing I received, and it was the best possible defense.

But since the patch, I haven't been able to survive by prioritizing strength over defense.

I've been trying out a lot of different builds, and right now the one I think strikes the best balance between survivability and healing is this one (I'm sticking to the principle that a dead healer can't heal) with 50% block and 900 Strength (not counting buffs).

I even made a seriously defensive build with over 4k armor (buying all the Sovereign of Victory and Victorious sets again, plus talismans) with 40% block/parry/disrupt, which was a complete failure because I was only healing around 700 HP per hit with Sigmar's Will... xD

However, as soon as the talismans from the event rings run out, I'll try more offensive builds again, but for now I'm just gathering data like this, since this is a special occasion

[guessgap]

interesting, thank you for all the data and sharing it with us.
i dont have the knowledge to have an opinion on this matter, but im always happy to see class balance topics, that go beyond the usual superficial complaints and back it up with data/statistics that can be objectively analyzed.

[Mvl130]

I don't think you should care for healdebuff after patch

I'm curious, why do you say that healdebuff is no longer a good option ?

[wonshot]

..The issue is that we have different perspectives. You insist that a shield WP should have permanent guard; I insist that a healer should not require permanent guard in order to function. There is a clear shortage of tanks on the server and a massive surplus of DPS. If we take the few tanks available away from DPS players and assign them to healers instead, that is not healthy for the server population as a whole.

It’s not a lack of understanding of the game; it’s simply a difference in perspective...

Sorry if this is far from the main point you are making. But this quoute to me reads as if you are ignoring the fact that Detaunt and Guard doesnt stack. So for a lifestealing healer to function, you kinda need to have high uptime of guard. Else you would have to detaunt to stay alive, which you would need to break to heal back up. And if a build can simply lifesteal face-tank without guard, then that build needs to be seriously adjusted(nerfed) imho. Imagine IF Shieldhealers could do that, and THEN slap a guard on top of it. Would be a monster!

Melee healers have the weakness in being kiteable, or controlable. That is the tradeoff by slotting one instead of a backline standard healer. In situations where the melee healer would need to kite, or chase and have little healoutput, the standard healer would easily cover that situation normally. But that is the tradeoff by slotting some extra dps output. Shield healers are probably more amazing in some scenarios than others. Stuff like Brightwizard collage just planting on the flag, having a layout and mechanic where the enemy has to come to you, and not too much space for ranged to kite you. Compared to Serpents passage where ranged will bunny jump no scope you down from the distance.

I would personally think and treat sheildhealers as a mdps, they usually cant perform without guardcover floating their way against singletarget assisting enemies.

[Demonito]

I'm curious, why do you say that healdebuff is no longer a good option ?

Only cause you can't take it with Pious Restoration, the best spell to cast after Benediction
+ in a balanced sc you're always under pressure, non stop spammin' heal. 1 lifetap makes a huge dif'
Also have to aim the weakest target at range to max the healing (often means hittin' pets...)
Better leave HD to a sw/slayer/dps wp... If nobody has it your team prob ain't great
Heal Archmage can easily take it tho
If your team is safe, you can still assist with silence/purge/slow/(de)buff ect...

[kpihuss]

..The issue is that we have different perspectives. You insist that a shield WP should have permanent guard; I insist that a healer should not require permanent guard in order to function. There is a clear shortage of tanks on the server and a massive surplus of DPS. If we take the few tanks available away from DPS players and assign them to healers instead, that is not healthy for the server population as a whole.

It’s not a lack of understanding of the game; it’s simply a difference in perspective...

Sorry if this is far from the main point you are making. But this quoute to me reads as if you are ignoring the fact that Detaunt and Guard doesnt stack. So for a lifestealing healer to function, you kinda need to have high uptime of guard. Else you would have to detaunt to stay alive, which you would need to break to heal back up. And if a build can simply lifesteal face-tank without guard, then that build needs to be seriously adjusted(nerfed) imho. Imagine IF Shieldhealers could do that, and THEN slap a guard on top of it. Would be a monster!

Melee healers have the weakness in being kiteable, or controlable. That is the tradeoff by slotting one instead of a backline standard healer. In situations where the melee healer would need to kite, or chase and have little healoutput, the standard healer would easily cover that situation normally. But that is the tradeoff by slotting some extra dps output. Shield healers are probably more amazing in some scenarios than others. Stuff like Brightwizard collage just planting on the flag, having a layout and mechanic where the enemy has to come to you, and not too much space for ranged to kite you. Compared to Serpents passage where ranged will bunny jump no scope you down from the distance.

I would personally think and treat sheildhealers as a mdps, they usually cant perform without guardcover floating their way against singletarget assisting enemies.

I agree with the mechanical point.

Guard and detaunt do not stack. If a lifesteal-based healer has to detaunt constantly, he loses a large part of his own healing output, because he needs to keep hitting in order to heal. But remember now the WP have an AOE detaunt and all the attacks are ST

I am not asking for Shield WP to be able to facetank without guard. If a Shield WP could stay in melee, ignore guard, ignore detaunt management, and still survive pressure only through lifesteal, then yes, that would probably be too strong.

My point is different.

Of course a healer standing in the frontline of a blob will need guard. There is not much debate there. Under that level of pressure, only tanks survive properly.

The problem is that Shield WP seems to need guard in almost every meaningful fight, even in small-scale situations where the pressure should not be that extreme. And if we accept that Shield WP should be treated like a mdps that needs guard, then the question becomes:

Does it give enough value back to justify consuming that guard?

That is where I think the tradeoff is weak.

Compared to Book WP, Shield WP provides:

Code: Select all

Healing/min: 88.3%
Healing to others/min: 74.3%
Protection to teammates: 52.7%
Protection received: 234.5%
Deaths: 183.2%
Resurrections: 32.8%

And compared to real DPS:

Code: Select all

Total damage: 41.7% of an average active DPS
Kill damage: 34.1% of an average active DPS

So it does not really look like “less healer in exchange for half a DPS”. It looks more like less useful support, much higher defensive dependency, more deaths, and limited offensive pressure.

There is also a resource problem with Shield WP.

The strong heals are limited by Righteous Fury.

Sigmar’s Will is the main useful heal. It can provide meaningful burst healing and also heals around the defensive target, but it costs 80 RF. With full RF, you can only use it three times before going dry.

Divine Assault can also be a strong heal, but it is channeled, costs RF, and forces the WP to stay committed in the fight. It also has the added difficulty of keeping yourself properly facing the opponent, and it can be interrupted if the target moves out of the frontal cone.

Before the patch, a shield healer could play more from the second line: behind the melee, but in front of the backline healers. From there, it could heal its own party and also players from other parties without being so excessively exposed. The reason was simple: the RF cost of the old Divine Strike, which would now be closer to Sigmar’s Will, was much lower, and RF could be regenerated much more easily. The healing numbers were not that different from what they are now. That playstyle is now basically impossible, because you run out of RF in only three GCDs, and you cannot generate enough RF from the second line. So you are forced to stay on the first frontline to reload RF

The problem is what happens after that.

The lower-cost or RF-generating tools do not provide enough real recovery under pressure:

• Sigmar’s Radiance is fine for maintaining the party and generating RF when pressure is low, but the heal is not enough to recover someone through real burst.
• Divine Strike generates RF, but the heal is single-target and not strong enough as a main recovery tool.
• Healing Hand is only a slow HoT, so it does not solve burst pressure either.

That is why the spec feels much better in a blob than in small-scale fights.

In a blob, generating RF is easier because there are many enemies in front of you. A single Smite can quickly refill RF, and then Sigmar’s Will becomes much easier to use repeatedly.

But in small scale, RF generation is much more limited. If you are pressured, you may need to detaunt. If you detaunt, you lose part of your lifesteal output. If you cannot keep hitting properly, you cannot generate and spend RF efficiently. And if you need guard in order to do all that, then again the spec is consuming the same defensive resource a mdps would need.

That is the real issue.

I agree that melee healers should have weaknesses. They should be kiteable, controllable, and map-dependent. I am not asking to remove that.

But if Shield WP is balanced as a melee slot that needs guard, then its combination of support and pressure should justify that guard.

Right now, the data does not show that. It shows less useful healing than Book WP, much less protection to teammates, much more protection received, more deaths, fewer resurrections, and damage far below a real DPS.

So I agree that Shield WP should not be able to lifesteal facetank without guard.

But that also means the spec has to be evaluated as a guard-dependent melee slot. And if we evaluate it that way, I do not think the return is sufficient.

I think the WP can be easily fixed improving the ammount of heals done by "Sigmar's radiance" and "Divine Strike" -not the damage- only enough to survive on melee. Even increasing the percentage of lifetaps and decreasing the casted heal on this skills can be a good idea. Or even doing the Divine Strikes heals up 6 targets, like Rune of Serenity of RP

[nocturnalguest]

@kpihuss

Is it possible for you to redo the experiment this weekend with a build Demonito mention?
Absorb aura, WoW, PR after benediction

If i wont be away on weekend (ill prolly know by friday evening) i can join and help out as any archetype at least for some scs. Can form <6, can form 6.

I strongly suspect that if you fully adjust playstyle and build, get a bit of coordination within a group results may be completely different.

Also 40% of average DPS player is quite amazing number by itself. Its big pressure for a cost of being 88% of book WP healing. Selfprotection is also not a horrible thing as you paint it out, it can be from a) enemy "wasted" their efforts into trying to kill 60% block healer so there has been no pressure on your DPS who could do whatever they wish to b) flawed number (fluffed) due to poor methodology of how it counts, e.g. your own parry buff - it really depends on exact encounter, taking into account you ran all that in super blob sc during weekend its a huge flaw, cause dragon bane was super puggy (event times), it had literally tons of clueless orvr folks in aoe orvr specs (event times) so it may explain such big number of selfprotection just by environment itself.

tl;dr will you post such analysis in case numbers will on contrary tell completely the opposite story in case you redo the test with different build/rotation/spec?