Power Word: Shield

Power Word: Shield (abbreviated PW:S) is a defensive Power Word available at level 8 to Discipline and Shadow priests. It creates a protective shield around a friendly target which absorbs a set amount of damage, and prevents spell pushback.

While Power Word: Shield is a valuable spell, Discipline priests gain a substantially larger absorption value for it. Power Word: Shield is undoubtedly one of the signature spells of the Discipline priest, protecting the target with a powerful shield that can seem unbreakable. It also is one of the primary ways Discipline priests apply Atonement to their allies.

Functionality
Power Word: Shield is an instant-cast spell which generates a shield around the target, absorbing most forms of damage. The shield will last for 15 seconds or until "broken" through combat. The shield enjoys the full protection of the player's armor, parry and dodge, partial resists, and other forms of damage mitigation: only damage which would actually injure the player will be absorbed by the shield.

Be aware that Power Word: Shield will not protect a target from debuffs, interrupts or crowd control, nor will it protect against environmental damage (falling, fatigue, drowning, etc). Attacks which additionally apply debuffs (eg. Mortal Strike) will still apply their debuffs even if all damage from the attack is absorbed. PW:S will also not absorb damage from abilities which injure their casters, such as a warlock's Life Tap.

However, Power Word: Shield does protect targets against pushback. It also prevents daze effects caused by being struck from behind.

Power Word: Shield does not interfere with rage generation for druids in bear form or warriors.

Discipline

 * Talents
 * Body and Soul will cause your shield to briefly buff the movement speed of the target. This is especially useful in fights that require frequent movement.
 * Shield Discipline - Restores mana to the priest when the shield is fully absorbed.


 * PvP Talents
 * Archangel - Increases the absorption of Power Word: Shield by 20% while active.
 * Strength of Soul - Causes the shield to reduce all physical damage taken by 15% while it persists.


 * Azerite traits
 * Weal and Woe - When Penance is used to damage an enemy, it increases the absorption value of the next Power Word: Shield cast.


 * Artifact traits


 * Shield of Faith increases the shield's absorption amount by 5/10/15%.
 * Share in the Light also shields you for 15% of the normal amount if you cast PW:S on a target other than yourself.

Shadow

 * Talents
 * Body and Soul will cause your shield to briefly buff the movement speed of the target. This is especially useful in fights that require frequent movement.


 * PvP Talents
 * Void Shield - Causes 30% of damage dealt to refill your shield.

Tips and tactics

 * Shielding before combat does not cause any threat and reduces the time until the target can be shielded again.
 * A major disadvantage of the shield is that it is a limited form of damage mitigation, not a true healing spell, and so may wear off without having been of any use. With a limited duration of 15 seconds, priests must choose their timing in order to ensure mana is not wasted casting the spell to little or no advantage.
 * Mana efficiency of Power Word: Shield is typically predicated upon the shield being fully absorbed. In practice, with only a 15 second window for this to occur, in many situations the shield will fade without being completely absorbed. In these cases the spell can be considered to be far less mana efficient.
 * As a magical effect, PW:S is dispellable with abilities such as Dispel Magic and Mass Dispel.
 * Mages can Spellsteal PW:S. Priests playing against smart mages may therefore wish to refrain from shielding, or stock up on buffs to make a theft more difficult.
 * PW:S is notably useful for its pushback prevention. This is very useful for casters who are receiving damage, allowing them to continue casting uninterrupted. In this way, PW:S can serve to increase casters' DPS output. This makes PW:S especially useful for priests when soloing.
 * Some classes and enemies (especially instance bosses) throw out debuffs which reduce the effectiveness of healing on player targets. As PW:S is not a healing spell, it is generally not impacted by these debuffs.
 * In PvP, this spell can be enormously helpful to rogues and Feral druids: if they take any sort of damage (including AoE and DoT), they will be broken out of stealth, which can expose them unexpectedly - and often fatally. Shielding a stealthed ally will protect them from these forms of damage, allowing them to jump out of stealth at their own leisure.
 * PW:S can be used to temporarily increase a tank's effective health in anticipation of a major damage spike.
 * PW:S has a somewhat antagonistic relationship with Prayer of Mending. PoM will not proc from absorbed damage, making the two spells hard to use in combination. One tactic is to first cast PoM on the tank or current target, allowing it to jump to another player before casting PW:S on the tank. This ensures at least one proc, and reduces the likelihood of PoM expiring prematurely.
 * By preventing daze effects, PW:S can be useful for fleeing players. However, it will not remove existing daze effects, so ideally cast it before the player has a chance to be dazed.

Trivia

 * Power Word: Shield is a basic Priest spell in Hearthstone. The flavor text reads: "Sure the extra protection is nice, but the shield really reduces visibility."
 * Prior to Patch 1.10.0, Power Word: Shield gained no absorption from spell power, entirely preventing the shield from scaling with the priest's gear. This was changed in the patch to allow it to gain a "small bonus" equal to 10% of the caster's bonus healing (the healing portion of spell power).