Divine Sacrifice has been fixed in Patch 3.3 according to the most recently released patch notes.  The talent was not only fixed, but significantly changed.  In addition, the related talent, Divine Guardian has been changed as well.  This is a pretty significant nerf to the 51/20/0 build for PvE that I’ve been anticipating for awhile. 

However, despite what appears to be a nerf, there are some situations where these talents are actually more useful to you now than they were in the previous versions, especially when mitigating damage off the tank.  The biggest benefit is that this ability is now usable even in a 25-man raid without having to use Divine Shield at all, which means you can actually use it multiple times during a fight.  Divine Sacrifice may also be useful now to mitigate damage off yourself if you are soloing or being focused on in an arena.  Here is the full text of the changes:

• Divine Guardian:  This talent no longer increases the amount of damage transferred to the paladin from Divine Sacrifice. Instead it causes all raid and party members to take 10/20% reduced damage while Divine Sacrifice is active.  Update:  In addition, the duration has been changed to 6 seconds, however the effect does not terminate when Divine Sacrifice is removed before its full duration.
• Divine Sacrifice:  Redesigned. The effect of Divine Sacrifice is now party-only and the maximum damage which can be transferred is now limited to 40% of the paladin’s health multiplied by the number of party members. In addition, the damage transferred to the paladin is now reduced by 50% before being applied to the paladin. Finally, the bug which allowed Divine Sacrifice to sometimes persist despite reaching its maximum damage has been fixed. Divine Sacrifice will now cancel as soon as its maximum damage value is exceeded in all cases.

Let’s go over each piece one step at a time.

• No More Unlimited Damage Reduction

The first major change is that Divine Sacrifice will no longer absorb 30% (40% with Divine Guardian) of all raid damage for 10 seconds when you have Divine Shield up.  It now absorbs the same amount regardless if you have Divine Shield up or not.  This is clearly a nerf for those instances when the entire raid is taking a lot of damage.

• The effect of Divine Sacrifice is now party-only.

This is a little misleading because the ability is still raid-wide due to the new effects of Divine Guardian.  So, it isn’t only your party members that benefit.  But your party member’s will benefit more than the rest of the raid.  This change is actually a buff Divine Sacrifice if you are in a 5-man group.  Instead of getting only a 40% damage reduction from the old Divine Sacrifice, your party will now get a 50% damage reduction:  30% from Divine Sacrifice and 20% from Divine Gaurdian.

• The damage transferred to the paladin is now reduced by 50% before being applied to the paladin.

This is a big deal.  This is what will allow us to now use Divine Sacrifice without needing to pop Divine Shield, meaning we can use it every 2 minutes instead of every 5.  If my math is correct, the most we can possibly lose from this ability is 100% of our health which in most cases could be healed through.  Because of the 50% damage reduction here and the 20% from Divine Sacrifice, we will be absorbing much more damage than we are taking, making it all worth it.

• All raid and party members will take 10/20% reduced damage while Divine Sacrifice is active.  Update:  In addition, the duration has been changed to 6 seconds, however the effect does not terminate when Divine Sacrifice is removed before its full duration.

If I’m reading this right, this means that even if you are solo questing, if you pop Divine Sacrifice, you will now take 20% less damage for 10 6 seconds.  Divine Sacrifice is now useable on yourself!  It also means that while you’re in a group, you will take 20% less damage when you use it.  Does this include the damage being transferred from others?  Probably not, but who knows?  This has ramifications for arenas.  Divine Sacrifice will work better if you use it to mitigate damage off of a team member (50% now), but you can also use it to mitigate damage off yourself if you’re the one being focused (only 20%).  I can’t gaurantee this is the way it works, but that’s how it sounds from the wording.

The maximum damage which can be transferred is now limited to 40% of the paladin’s health multiplied by the number of party members.

40% times 5 divided by 2 times 20%… = /headscratch?

Let’s get into some math.

Update:  The duration of Divine Guardian as been changed to 6 seconds.  This means that the math below holds true if the paladin reaches 330% of his health within 6 seconds.  If he doesn’t, the maximum absorption will be lower than 330% depending on how long the effect lasts and how much damage was absorbed in the first 6 seconds.  In general, the 6 second limit is a nerf.  However, it is actually a buff in those cases where Divine Sacrifice would end before 6 seconds (like if you manually cancel it or if there’s a ton of damage) since Divine Guardian now lasts 6 seconds no matter what.

In 2v2s

From the wording, I assume that you count as a party member, and so the total damage redirection from a party member in a 2v2 arena would be 80% of your health.  However, for every 3 damage redirected, 2 damage is also mitigated through Divine Gaurdian (the ratio is 30%/20%).    If you add that damage in, it means your partner slugs off about 133% of your total health worth of damage during the duration and you would lose 40% of your health if you don’t have Divine Shield up.  This is less than the 150% health reduction that is now possible (and much less than the infinite reduction that was possible with Divine Shield).  This isn’t bad though, especially since your partner is now absorbing 50% of the damage taken instead of 40%.

In a 5-man Group

However, the numbers change a lot if you are in a 5-man group.  At that point, your total mitigation is 200% of your health.  If you add Divine Gaurdian on top of that, you can now mitigate over 330% of  your health worth in total incoming damage, which is much higher than the previous 150% amount.  You would lose exactly 100% of your health to do that.  So, this change is a buff for 5-man groups except in cases where the damage coming in would exceed 330% of your health when you have Divine Shield up.  But even then, you are now absorbing 50% damage instead of 40%, so it works out nicely.

In a Raid

If you are in a raid there is no limit to the amount that can be mitigated through Divine Gaurdian except the 10 6 second duration.  You will mitigate 20% of the damage off the tank and anyone else not in your group for the entire 10 6 seconds, regardless of how much damage the others take and you won’t even take any damage from doing it (and you don’t even have to use Divine Shield).  This is a nerf though from the current version, since before you could mitigate 40% of all damage for the full 10 seconds with no limitations except having to use Divine Shield.

Possible Raid Strategies

So what are the viable raid strategies for using this new Divine Sacrifice?  Let’s take a look.

Put the Holy Paladin in the Tank’s Group

In this strategy, let’s assume the tank is the only person in the raid taking damage when you pop Divine Sacrifice.  You will now absorb 50% of the damage taken by the tank, up to 330% of your total health (if taken within 6 seconds).  In other words, if you have 20k health, the tank can take over 66000 damage (if within 6 seconds, less if it takes longer) and half of it will be absorbed.  You will lose 100% of your health doing this.  At the same time, 20% of all damage taken by anyone in the raid is absorbed for the first 6 seconds, although if other people in your party are taking damage then they’ll steal some of the absorption from the tank.

This is actually better than the 40% reduction of the current version of Divine Sacrifice (50% is better than 40%) if what you’re concerned about is saving the tank from a few large hits.  It also is much better than using Hand of Sacrifice on the tank for the same effect.

Do not put the Holy Paladin in the Tank’s Group

In this strategy, you are trying to put the Holy Paladin in a group that will not take very much damage.  That way, when you use Divine Sacrifice, 20% of all damage will be mitigated for the entire 10 6 seconds.  This would be very good if you’re mitigating damage off of multiple tanks or even melee dps.  You could potentially mitigate a lot more damage than in the first scenario, although it is only 20% per hit instead of 50%.  And again, it would be completely free, you wouldn’t even take any damage from doing this. 

Update:  With the new Divine Guardian, you can easily achieve this affect simply by immediately canceling your Divine Sacrifice after using it.  Divine Guardian will activate for the full 6 seconds and you won’t take any damage, regardless which group you’re in.

So which spec should I use?

Divine Sacrifice and Divine Gaurdian have different uses now.  They’re clearly not as powerful against situations like XT’s tantrum.  However, they’re still good talents that could work very well given the right circumstances.  The fact that you can use it without Divine Shield in some cases makes it more flexible than before.  Personally, I’m still going to stick with Holy/Ret for PvE and Holy/Prot for PvP, but I’d definitely consider switching to Holy/Prot for PvE depending on the fight and circumstance.

Of course, changes to this talent don’t just affect Holy Paladins.  Prot and Ret Paladins both are going to be affected by these changes.  In general, most paladins with this talent will probably still just pop Divine Shield and eat the nerfs.  But the new Divine Sacrifice can be a very powerful tool when you plan ahead and use it intelligently.

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