When is it okay to Power Word: Shield?

[res]

Hello warriors, thank you for taking so many hits for me throughout the years.

I am a priest who has played on different vanilla servers for several years, and as far back as I can remember I've always been very reluctant to shield a tanking warrior. The only times when I have shielded a warrior was if I knew that the warrior would be taking a lot of damage within the next few seconds (Last boss in Strat Living before stun, pulling trash mobs before Emperor in BRD with an undergeared warrior tank etc.) or if the warrior was rage-capped but low on health and needs some "divine" intervention quickly while another healer is casting a heal.

Lately on this server, however, I've seen a lot of priests put shields on their tanks as they are about to pull, or just as part of their healing rotation when doing a raid or an encounter. To me this seems very strange, but I haven't seen any warriors complaining about it, and I haven't seen the groups wipe because of it either.

From my knowledge the first few seconds are the most important for a tank, and having a shield on can be very damaging to the rage/threat gain.

So I'm going to ask you all, because it is about you after all, when is it okay to Power Word: Shield a tank, or a warrior in general?

[Undertanker]

Preshielding a pull for aoe where the warrior is able to pre blood rage, then charge thunderclap, it is a useful tiol, but situational.

On pulls where cc is used or LoS pull, this is a bad move. Dps will get aggro because the shield is up too long, tank has to waste taunt on kill target and then add goes to healer when healer has to use extra heals on the dps that aggro.

Best option is after the pull and aggro is established, and a warrior is around 30% or lower. This allows your HoT to get some effective ticks and create a cushion of time to continue to use downranked heals.

Or on a boss, is boss is below 65% aggro should be settled enough that you can when the war is at full hp. Shield, hot and then wait. You might get enough time for spirit it kick in for a tick or two of mana.

[Lacesszz]

Don't do it on pull, after pull nor when berserker rage is up.

[Ricenseo]

no shields on pull unless u'r a maintank in 40ppl raid, imo

[Miv]

Only use your shield as a safety net. If the tank is going to die and you need time to cast a heal, shield him. Otherwise don't do it.

[Torekk]

I've always seen PW:S as an emergency button, not something to use on every pull or even whenever it is off CD. It is horrendously mana inefficient, it stops rage generation from taking damage, and it disallows you to use it in those situations where you need it most as sort of an instant heal.

TLDR emergency button due to mana inefficiency

[skitszo]

i only use it as mentioned before.. when you need more time to get a heal off for the tank and he's low. Usually when they are chain pulling and i'm trying to get as much drinking done as possible.

Rogues get one if they go in to sap.

Dps get it if they are taking damage and i give them renew.