Places a blessing on a party or raid member, protecting them from all physical attacks for 10 sec. Cannot be used on a target with Forbearance. Causes Forbearance for 30 sec.
Commonly referred to as "BoP" in raids. As in "Bop that Warlock, he's Hellfiring!"
Using [Divine Shield] or Blessing of Protection will afflict the protected character with the [Forbearance] debuff, which lasts one minute and prevents any of those four abilities from being used again while it is active.
This does NOT protect the target from spell damage. This should not be used as a last minute protection if the target is being hit by spells (such as anyone running from a Mage in PvP).
Against rogues, if they have any stacks of deadly poison on the target you BoP, a rogue can still use Envenom to damage the target because it is a Nature damage attack, not physical (its a rare thing but it can interrupt something like a bandage or be potentially lethal if you aren't careful.)
People protected by Blessing of Protection can still cast spells.
While this skill is effective in PvP against warriors, rogues, and hunters, they all have abilities that can hit through the shield. Those abilities include [Kick], [Thunder Clap], [Pummel], etc.
Players protected by Blessing of Protection lose aggro while under its duration. Tanking paladins can use this as a last resort method of aggro management, or because of a player's inability to perform melee actions through the shield, an effective way to reign in a melee DPS class who is unable to control their own aggro. The threat reduction only lasts for the duration of the blessing however, so a tanking paladin needs to make sure they are able to generate enough threat to keep aggro when the blessing expires.
Patch 1.5.0 (2005-06-07): Fixed a bug where a Hunter's magic shots were missing too frequently when used on a target with Blessing of Protection active.
Patch 1.3.0 (2005-03-07): Now castable on all raid targets.