Paladin Defensive Spells: Divine Shield, Lay on Hands and Forbearance

◆Divine Protection and Divine Shield

Divine Protection is the paladin's first invulnerability, available from level 6. It protects from all physical attacks and spells, but during that time the paladin cannot attack or use physical abilities. Rank 1 lasts 6 seconds, rank 2 (level 18) lasts 8 seconds. The cooldown is 5 minutes.

Divine Shield is learned at level 34 and protects the paladin from all damage and spells: rank 1 for 10 seconds, rank 2 (level 50) for 12 seconds. You can attack while shielded, but the time between your attacks is increased by 100%. The cooldown is also 5 minutes. The shield is perfect for casting a heal in peace, dropping aggro or avoiding a lethal boss attack. How to combine it with paladin auras and paladin seals in combat is covered in separate guides.

◆Blessing of Protection

Blessing of Protection is cast on an ally and protects them from all physical attacks, but the target cannot attack or use physical abilities. Ranks: level 10 — 6 seconds, level 24 — 8 seconds, level 38 — 10 seconds. The cooldown is 5 minutes; since patch 1.3 it can be cast on any raid member.

The Protection talent Guardian's Favor reduces the Blessing of Protection cooldown by 60 or 120 seconds and extends Blessing of Freedom by 3 or 6 seconds. Remember that a target can only have one blessing from each paladin, so Blessing of Protection replaces your regular blessing from the paladin blessings guide.

◆Forbearance

Since patch 1.9, Divine Shield, Divine Protection and Blessing of Protection apply a 1 minute debuff called Forbearance to the target. While it is active, the target cannot be made invulnerable again by any of these three spells. In practice this means:

1. If you gave a warrior Blessing of Protection, you cannot save them with it again for another minute.
2. Divine Protection and Divine Shield on the paladin also lock each other out for a minute.
3. Lay on Hands and Blessing of Freedom do not cause Forbearance in 1.12.1.

◆Lay on Hands

Lay on Hands heals an ally for an amount equal to the paladin's maximum health and drains all of the paladin's remaining mana. Ranks are learned at levels 10, 30 and 50; rank 2 also restores 250 mana to the target, rank 3 restores 550 mana. The cooldown is 1 hour, and the talent Improved Lay on Hands reduces it by 10 or 20 minutes and gives the target a 15 or 30% bonus to armor from items for 2 minutes. Talent details are in the holy paladin build.

◆Divine Intervention

Divine Intervention is learned at level 30 and requires the reagent Symbol of Divinity. The paladin sacrifices themselves: they die, and the chosen party or raid member becomes immune to all harmful attacks for 3 minutes but cannot take any action. Enemies stop attacking the protected ally. The cooldown is 1 hour. The classic use is to keep a class with a resurrection spell alive during an unavoidable wipe so they can raise the raid afterwards.

◆Blessing of Freedom

Blessing of Freedom is available from level 18 and grants immunity to movement impairing effects for 10 seconds. The cooldown is 20 seconds. It is one of the paladin's strongest tools in PvP: with it a warrior or rogue keeps chasing the target despite slows from Frostbolt, Cone of Cold or Frost Shock.

Summary table

◆Related guides

• Paladin guide
• Paladin abilities
• Paladin blessings
• Protection paladin build
• Paladin auras
• Druid buffs

Want to try Divine Shield in a real fight? Create an account on WoW x5 and connect to the server — boosted rates will get you to rank 2 Divine Shield and every blessing quickly.