Quick Facts

Screenshots

Videos

Comments

Comment by vortigern

This is a vastly under used blessing. There a many situations both in PvE and PvP where this is useful.

PvE: Long single boss fights. Cast this on your tank, you'll be surprised how fast 45dmg reduction adds up that you can just heal away and it lets your main healers more time between casts which conserves mana.

PvP: The anti sheep / seduction blessing. Cast this blessing on a mele in the thick of a fight your supporting. Warlocks and Mages will often sheep or seduce you if they notice your supporting someone taking you out of the fight. With this blessing, the second your mele fighter with the blessing takes damage so do you, which break the sheep / seduction spell. Now you can continue your support.

Comment by doombringer

^ Very true. Use rank 1 in PVP to limit the amount of damage you receive, since you only want it to break sheep/seduce.

Comment by thewrs

Can the redirected damage received by the caster interrupt the casting of spells ? ( Holy Light )

Are all forms of damage redirected? ( Physical, Spell, World etc )

Is the redirected damage affected by resistances, armor, divine shield etc?

Thanks in advance :D

Comment by PrimEviL

as far as i've noticed, dmg transfered is deducted of ammount of dmg you would recieve if attack was done on you, thus leaving remaining dmg to target(if it has less armor than you) less than plain "-dmg taken"

Comment by Xindan

This ability is great for the Maiden of Virtue encounter in Karazhan; casting this on the MT before Repentance will break the casting Paladin out of the stun and allow him/her to continue healing the MT while the other healers are stuck in Repentance.

Comment by 23203

Also an excellent option for AoE pulls (like the big groups between Moroes and Maiden in Kar), toss it on the caster and when they pull aggro you'll absorb enough of the damage that reactionary healers can recover.

Comment by amiko

first of all, im not a pala player, nor i have experiences with them, but, im SURE the person who you put this blessing on will be able to right click it at the buff menu(next to the minimap@default blizzard ui)wich probably will remove the debuff on your self asswel, so put it on your mate, in pvp or pve(maiden and stuff), let it tick 1 time, cc goes away, and put another blessing on, im not sure if this will work, if any1 tried it plz reply

Amiko

Comment by daurenr

actually, sounds smart, if u get out of CC u can jus change blessing on the focussed target ( the one with BoSac)

Comment by a505999

Once you cast this Blessing in PVP for anti-CC purposes, you'll likely want to leave it up for the full duration. Even if you break a CC with a tick of shunted damage, it is likely a watchful opponent will attempt to CC you again. For example, imagine that a rogue sees a Fear or Polymorph break and they quickly use Gouge. The Blessing will break this second CC too once your ally takes damage.

In my opinion the only time to switch blessings away from Sacrifice is when opponents are kiting your team-mate, you have a Trinket or Bubble ready to protect yourself, and protective terrain is nearby. In this case, quickly applying Freedom may be more useful than leaving up Sacrifice.

Comment by 194786

Thank you Blizzard for making this seal useless

12 sec duration and 2 min cd is just stupid in compare to 30sed dur and 30 sec cd. All its really used for is pvp to break sheep and seduction witch is pretty vital in 2v2 and 3v3 ,this now comes pretty impossible. Sure it can be used in pve but what paladin is gonna remove the blessing of light to put this on the tank.

Ever sins TBC when arenas where implemented paladins have had nothing but nerfs, sure they had a buff in the retri tree but that was just because they %^&*ed it up in the first place.

This just comes to shows how much blizzard hates paladins and gives in to other ppl whining about them.

Its simple ppl don't like paladins because of bubble... ppl whine... blizzard is more likely to make changes to try and even things out what usually turns into a nerf for persons who know how to play.

Comment by 168146

this is an excelent spell for PVP.especially arenas. unfortunately we must wait and see if the damage the paladin takes is in turn mitigated by armor. if not... then casting it on a cloth class might bring u more trouble than u bargained for :)

Comment by Less

Blessing of Sacrifice, Blessing of Protection, Blessing of Freedom, and Blessing of Salvation. Are all being changed to Hand spells in WotLK which can be up with a blessing but not up with eachother. They will also recieve slightly modified effects.

Comment by Dorminus

By firstry on 08/17/2008 (Patch 2.4.3)
Thank you Blizzard for making this seal useless

12 sec duration and 2 min cd is just stupid in compare to 30sed dur and 30 sec cd. All its really used for is pvp to break sheep and seduction witch is pretty vital in 2v2 and 3v3 ,this now comes pretty impossible. Sure it can be used in pve but what paladin is gonna remove the blessing of light to put this on the tank.

Ever sins TBC when arenas where implemented paladins have had nothing but nerfs, sure they had a buff in the retri tree but that was just because they %^&*ed it up in the first place.

This just comes to shows how much blizzard hates paladins and gives in to other ppl whining about them.

Its simple ppl don't like paladins because of bubble... ppl whine... blizzard is more likely to make changes to try and even things out what usually turns into a nerf for persons who know how to play.
Last edited by firstry on 08/17/2008 (Patch 2.4.3)

Why was he downrated? He did have a very valid point. Yes it is true that the Blessing's use in PvE has been greatly buffed, but at a cost of 6% mana per use, a new 2 minute cooldown and the duration reduction from 30-12 seconds its signature use of making Paladins unccable in Arenas in just about gone.. This means no more autofiring everytime it wears off and even if you could you would be discharging insane amounts of mana. This is possibly one of the largest nerfs that Paladins especially healadins and shockadins will suffer in Wrath of the Lich King as far as PvP goes.

Comment by rodmin

Is it true that you still take damage from this spell while under the effects of Divine Shield?

Comment by 52750

A 12 secs duration with a 2 mins cd, making us completely vulnerable to cc =(

Is this pvp nerf an intended one? hopefully they'll fix this before 11/13 =(

Comment by stoptherobots

The damage redirected to you by this Hand spell can be prevented by Divine Shield. I use mine in a macro like this:

/castsequence Divine Shield, Hand of Sacrifice

I have two, one that targets my focus, and the one above that simply works on who I have targeted.

This is great for fights like Bloodboil where the target can take hits of 10,000+, and can be used if the tank is getting low on health to give the healers time to top him off. Please note though, that there will be 1.5 seconds where you will not be shielded yet your target will have the Hand spell on still. The damage will not usually kill you, but I have had it happen when I am low on health.

Comment by 236465

What happens when two paladins use this spell on eachother? Do they in fact explode with 30% of their damage taken bouncing back and forth?

Comment by 214635

Extremely underrated for healing.

This + Bacon of Light is win.

Comment by Niroshi

I personally love this ability, it gives Holy something to help cushion undergeared tanks on pulls that have a high amount of damage that you can predict. It can also function as a somewhat weaker Shield Wall for any Tank who needs it.

Comment by 31182

For some fights, particularly those with no environmental damage such as Patchwerk, Retribution paladins may find this extremely useful for getting more mana back from Spiritual Attunement to prevent you from running on fumes all the time.

On Patchwerk, don't put it on a hateful tank. Your healers may not appreciate that as much.

Comment by kalujin

Does anyone know if this works on Kel'Thuzad when he does his Frost Blast?

Comment by 194732

I don't know while frost blast, but I know if you don't have this spell on a cooldown and you are MCed by kel and you toon uses it on him...you will kill yourself. As that is what happened tonight. :)

Comment by Sarbiton

That spell sounds absolutely delicious. If the 51 point holy talent was Bacon of Light, I'd totally respec.

Comment by 256123

I find this spell very helpful against patchwerk. When the leader told us to burn all cds, I used this and divine shield and noticed the OT was taking considerably less damage. Seeing as how he got hit with hateful strike very hard repeatedly during the soft frenzy, it seemed like a must to use.

Edit: I also have a question: If someone in naxx gets hit by one of the slime bubbles after patchwerk that instantly kill (And remind me of frogger...) and this hand is on them, will they have 30% of their health left and the caster will have taken damage?

Comment by 282841

On the 3.1.0 PTR, this is a 'new' sacrifice' spell:

New Talent: Divine Sacrifice: Causes all party/raid members affected by one of the paladin’s auras to transfer 30% of all damage taken to the paladin (maximum of 150% of the paladin’s max health). Lasts 10 sec. 2 min cooldown.

Comment by ilovemrdoe

That's a different spell, here's hand of sacrifice on the ptr: http://ptr.wowhead.com/?spell=6940, here's the new spell: http://ptr.wowhead.com/?spell=64205

Comment by 242215

Even though you make a very nice point,PVE retribution paladins should almost always use Seal of Blood/Martyr which has a damage recoil that brings your health down either way.

Comment by Bubblex

Slimes don't kill. They just do damage you usually can't stand. Our tanks approximately receive 26-36k damage per slime in N10. I never tried myself if this spell transfers their damage, but I think it does.

Comment by 43839

Divine Sacrifice is a new spell, Hand of Sacrifice is unchanged and is not getting replaced like how the above poster kind of hinted at.

Comment by 356696

The damage done by Hand of Sacrifice does not trigger the effect from a second copy of the spell cast on the original paladin.

Comment by 146438

my guilds holy paladin uses this in conjunction with bubble on the third plasma blast on mimiron during phase one after our warrior tank runs out of cooldowns in order to keep him alive

Comment by 282841

whoops, ur right ^^

Comment by 282841

With 3.1.0, ret paladins are only taxing their healers by doing this.

Comment by Cheebeechoobza

Does the damage from this proc Prayer of Mending?

Comment by Salculd

Provided you can spare the GCD, in most situations there's pretty much no good reason to NOT throw this on somebody, anybody, whenever you bubble.

Comment by samarium

Here's a question. If HoSac is spellstolen, is any damage redirected, or does it just flat out do nothing?

Comment by spectro1

Exactly what I was wondering and came here to find out. Hope someone answers this question.

Comment by 275366

If you bubble, no damage is taken at all. So, if used correctly, it's definitely a good idea.

Comment by 300175

I find the tooltip a bit misleading... How does this work?

The damage done to the caster is transfered to a party/raid member under effect of this spell.
The damage done to the party/raid member under this effect is transfered to the caster.

Places a Hand on the party or raid member, transfering 30% damage taken to the caster. Lasts 12 sec or until the caster has transfered 100% of their maximum health. Players may only have one Hand on them per Paladin at any one time.

You can read it as:

Transfering 30% damage taken to the caster (-> to party/raid member)
Transfering 30% damage taken -> to the caster

Wich one is it? 1 or 2?

Comment by gaibban

Places a Hand on the party or raid member, transfering 30% damage taken to the caster. Lasts 12 sec or until the caster has transfered 100% of their maximum health. Players may only have one Hand on them per Paladin at any one time.

--------------------------------------------------------------

I find the tooltip a bit misleading... How does this work?

1.
The damage done to the caster is transfered to a party/raid member under effect of this spell.
2.
The damage done to the party/raid member under this effect is transfered to the caster.

Places a Hand on the party or raid member, transfering 30% damage taken to the caster. Lasts 12 sec or until the caster has transfered 100% of their maximum health. Players may only have one Hand on them per Paladin at any one time.
You can read it as:

1.
Transfering 30% damage taken to the caster (-> to party/raid member)
2.
Transfering 30% damage taken -> to the caster

Wich one is it? 1 or 2?

--------------------------------------------------------------------
In response to the above saying the tooltip is misleading.
The hand transfers 30% of damage taken by the recipient of the buff (the buff target) to the caster (the buff-er or buff caster).

Comment by 340239

I can confirm that if I steal this as a mage from anyone, whenever I take damage the paladin will take the 30% of it. Very useful to have in certain situations such as double healer/warrior teams. If you are meant to CC the priest with a warrior smacking you as you focus the Paladin, a steal on this will send plenty of free pressure from you to the Paladin. Still, as a general rule you want to take this off as it would break any CC used on the paladin when you take damage, so awhile back I decided to make it easy on myself and I just added a "/cancelaura Hand of Sacrifice" to my Spellsteal macro. Very good question by the way.

Comment by 1909

It transfers 30% of the damage taken by the target TO THE CASTER. As in, from the target to the caster.

It wouldn't be very paladin-like to make your ally suffer some of your damage. Maybe a warlock would roll with that?

Curse of Sacrifice
6% of base mana 30 yd range
Instant cast 2 min cooldown
Places a Curse on the party or raid member, transfering 30% damage taken by the caster to the target. Lasts 12 sec or until the target has transfered 100% of their maximum health.
"-What a jackass."

Comment by mimicron

Isn't that in lines of Soul Link?

Comment by karlww

I used this and divine shield and noticed the OT was taking considerably less damage

Let me guess, I'd say about... 30% less damage?

Comment by Jerodast

Do they in fact explode with 30% of their damage taken bouncing back and forth?

Even if the damage did bounce back and forth, there would be no exploding - the damage is divided so the total doesn't increase, and it would work itself down to an infinitesimal amount.

Say Joe and Bob have HoS'd each other and Joe takes 10k damage.
Joe would immediately take 7k of that, and 3k would transfer to Bob.
Bob would take 2100 of that, and 900 would transfer back to Joe.
Joe would take 630 more of that and 270 would transfer Bob.

This would go on until Bob has taken 2307.7 damage and Joe has taken 7692.3 damage, for a total of 10k. Mathematically there would still be a tiny amount bouncing back and forth infinitely many times, but I'm sure the game would stop caring below a thousandth of a point or so :)

Comment by 732127

If used while paladin is in bubble, can you still mitigate your friend's 30%dmg received?

Comment by 476166

Be very wary of using this ability during heavy AoEs. If you're being hit hard, an extra 30% damage won't help the situation.

If there are ANY non-tanking Paladins in your group, your raid should have them use this combined with Divine Shield/Divine Protection, as an extra defensive cooldown for your tank. It's extremely invaluable in any situation, and saves the tank from having to use one of their own cooldowns. Protection Pallies can use this on an off-tank or main-tank.

Holy Paladins can also use this combined with Divine Plea -- the 30% damage offset will provide you with room to fully take advantage of DP's mana restoration, without having to worry about the heal reduction debuff.

Comment by Sephinel

This can also be used to free yourself from CC in PvP. Works best on sap/repentance/sheep as those break instantly when you take damage. Timing it is not easy, but it's extremely useful.

Comment by ikill4cookies

HOLY PALADINS HAVE TO LEARN TO USE THIS.

It is your main tank cool down yet i hardly see any holy paladins using it

As is almost constantly over healing you anyways, as well as if your specced into it. Transfering 30% of the damage to you could be thought of simply reducing damage taking on the tank by 30%.

Although it generally shouldn't be used in AoE situations as it doesn't reduce the damage the raid will take overall just spreads it out. Most tank deaths are not from too much damage taken, but too big of a unexpected burst taken that overwhelm the healers, this will alleviate that, if you do become nervous that you may die from it, or you do not think protector of the innocent will keep up with the damage, and you do not have mana to spare to heal the difference, it is perfectly possible to use divine protection, or divine shield at the same time as it,

Comment by oberondreaming

When a player is the target of Hand of Sacrifice, and is also using a damage reducing cooldown of their own, what order are the two applied in?

Suppose the tank gets hit for 100,000 damage.

Suppose a paladin has places HoS on them and suppose the tank is also using a personal 50% damage reduction cooldown. The tank is going to take 35,000 damage in either case (50% of 70% of 100,000 or 70% of 50% of 100,000), but...

Will the paladin take 30,000 damage (meaning HoS went first, absorbed 30% of the full 100,000) or 15,000 (meaning the damage was reduced 50% before HoS was applied)?

Comment by Budlaorf

As of patch 5.2, this spell also removes all harmful magic effects from the target for ret only via Absolve, giving ret a bit more viability and another great reason to use this spell in pvp.

Updated for the new build. Glyph of Hand of Sacrifice will be added in 5.4. This glyph will be very useful, esp. in raids.

Comment by Linguist

The Glyph of Hand of Sacrifice, added in patch 5.4, makes this ability a 30% damage reduction on the target, full stop. If you are proficient at casting HoS with good timing, the glyph makes it into a surprisingly powerful damage reduction spell, instead of merely a damage diffusion spell.

However, in the hands of a beginner this glyph will do nothing. Observe the fight, and look for the time when a single ally's survival is difficult and useful!

Comment by HKRazieL

6.2.0 when you reach level 80 to be able to acquire this ability you will be greeted by a "see your trainer" icon next to your spell, and when you see your trainer he will tell you nothing... you need to enter the proving grounds to be able to learn this ability but that is stated NOWHERE in the game and surprisingly outside of the game...

p.s those proving grounds will be the same as in mop but will not count towards your level 100 proving grounds

Comment by RerunBlisters

When the damage is being transferred, what is the damage transferred as? As physical, or also as magical?

Comment by RerunBlisters

Can paladins cast BoS on themselves?...Well. what with the damage reduction of the transferred damage...it would be worth it.

Comment by Freeozy

Actually it is not fair restoration druids has ironbark which has less CD and no damage to caster. Once upon a time we can prevent the damage from BoS but now we can only reduce it. I am not sure if other healers has a mitigation that good as ironbark but definetly BoS is not the best one anymore. Actually it is kind a stupid to take damage from it where other healers has better ones. The only reason for this spell to exist is because of sacrifice part. Blizzard loves to fun with paladins make them doing biggest sacrifices.

Links WeakAuras Export

Blessing of Sacrifice

Blessing of Sacrifice

7% of base mana	40 yd range

Instant	2 min recharge

1 Charges

Blesses a party or raid member, reducing their damage taken by 30%, but you suffer 100% of damage prevented.

Last 12 sec, or until transferred damage would cause you to fall below 20% health.

Buff

Blessing of Sacrifice

[30% of damage taken is redirected to $auracaster.][Taking 30% of damage taken by target ally.]
12 seconds remaining

Spell Details

Duration

12 seconds

School

Holy

Mechanic

n/a

Dispel type

n/a

GCD category

n/a

Cost

7% of base mana

Range

40 yards (Long)

Cast time

Instant

Cooldown

1 second

GCD

0 seconds

Effect #1

Apply Aura: Split Damage % (Arcane, Fire, Frost, Holy, Nature, Physical, Shadow)
Value: 30%
PVP Multiplier: 1

Effect #2

Apply Aura: Absorb Damage (Arcane, Fire, Frost, Holy, Nature, Physical, Shadow)
PVP Multiplier: 1

Effect #3

Dummy
Value: 20
PVP Multiplier: 1
Server-side script

Effect #4

Apply Aura: Mod % Damage Taken (Arcane, Fire, Frost, Holy, Nature, Physical, Shadow)
PVP Multiplier: 1

Flags

Guides

Battle For Azeroth Class Utility Overview Best Retribution Paladin Conduits Holy Paladin PvP Guide Holy Rotation Guide Legion Paladin Class Changes Protection Artifact Guide Protection Paladin Rotation Guide Raid and Class cooldown list [Archive] Retribution Paladin Guide Violet Hold Dungeon Strategy Guide

Blessing of Sacrifice

Buff

Spell Details

Guides

Related

Contribute