Divine Shield

Divine Shield
The first time a Shielded minion takes damage, ignore it.

An Argent Squire with Divine Shield in place

Divine Shield is an ability which causes a minion to ignore the next damage it receives. Upon receiving any damage the Divine Shield is removed, and that damage is reduced to 0. The amount of damage taken is not relevant, and may be from any source, including combat as either attacker or defender, spells, Hero Powers or other effects.

Divine Shield is available to all classes, but is most strongly associated with the paladin class.

Notes

Divine Shield bubble, isolated

• Divine Shield ignores the next damage the minion receives, regardless of its amount and source. In particular:

• • Minions with Divine Shield are not protected from all other sources of modifying attributes and destroys, such as Hunter's Mark, Equality and Assassinate.
  • Minions with Divine Shield will still deal damage normally.
• Upon receiving any damage, that damage is reduced to 0 and any Divine Shield effect is removed. In particular:
  • Damage Events that deal 0 damage (like attacking a 0-Attack minion or casting Shadowflame on a minion with 0 Attack) will not remove Divine Shield effects, since no damage is dealt.
  • Effects with both damage and additional components (such as Cone of Cold) will have their damage absorbed by Divine Shield but will still apply all non-damage effects.
  • Effects that trigger when damage is dealt (such as Water Elemental and Frothing Berserker) will not trigger if the damage is prevented by Divine Shield.
  • Imp-losion will not summon any Imps if its damage is reduced to 0 by Divine Shield.
  • For additional details, see Damage#Advanced rules.
• Other than by absorbing damage, Divine Shield can also be removed through silence effects, transform effects and Blood Knight's Battlecry.
• As with Stealth, Divine Shield is both an ability of a minion and an effect on the minion.
  • A minion with the Divine Shield ability will get the Divine Shield effect whenever it enters play by any means (played directly from the hand, put into battlefield by Deathlord, ressurected by Redemption, summoned by Hungry Dragon and so on). Once the effect is consumed, the card text will still be present but does not do anything.
  • Effects like Hand of Protection give the Divine Shield effect to a minion regardless of whether it already has the Divine Shield card text or has ever had the effect before.
  • Multiple Divine Shield effects do not stack: attempting to give the Divine Shield effect to a minion that already has it will do nothing.
• Minions that already have Divine Shield cannot be randomly granted another Divine Shield (such as from Selfless Hero's Deathrattle).
  • These effects will instead target another random eligible minion without Divine Shield.

Strategy

Since Divine Shield is removed by any source of damage, regardless of amount, when seeking to quickly destroy a shielded target, it is often wise to use a weak ability to remove the shield before targeting the minion with a more substantial attack (if required). Good sources for this include weak minions, low damage spells like Arcane Explosion, and the mage Hero Power Fireblast. Cards with low damage secondary effects like a druid's Swipe and warrior's Death's Bite are similarly useful, by primarily targeting another minion while allowing the secondary damage to remove the Divine Shield.

Minions that originally possessed Divine Shield but have already lost it are good targets for return effects or re-summoning using cards such as Redemption, allowing them to regain their shield.

Cards with Divine Shield

For Wild format listings, see Divine Shield/Wild format.

This section lists minions which have Divine Shield or the ability to gain Divine Shield when played.

Collectible

Swipe left or right to see the cards.

Uncollectible

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Sources of Divine Shield

For Wild format listings, see Divine Shield/Wild format.

Divine Shield-generating cards

This section lists cards which generate Divine Shield minions.

Swipe left or right to see the cards.

Divine Shield-granting cards

This section lists cards which grant the Divine Shield ability to other minions or to itself.

Swipe left or right to see the cards.

Related cards

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Achievements

	Category	Name	Description	Rewards
	Gameplay - General - Neutral Keywords	Bubble Buddies For Life	Play 10 minions with Divine Shield.	10
	Gameplay - General - Neutral Keywords	Bubble Buddies For Life	Play 30 minions with Divine Shield.	10
	Gameplay - General - Neutral Keywords	Bubble Buddies For Life	Play 100 minions with Divine Shield.	10
	Gameplay - General - Neutral Keywords	Bubble Buddies For Life	Play 300 minions with Divine Shield.	10
	Gameplay - General - Neutral Keywords	Bubble Buddies For Life	Play 1000 minions with Divine Shield.	20
	Gameplay - Darkmoon Faire - Paladin	Lothraxion's Balloon Shop	Give 10 Silver Hand Recruits Divine Shield.	10
	Gameplay - Darkmoon Faire - Paladin	Lothraxion's Balloon Shop	Give 30 Silver Hand Recruits Divine Shield.	10
	Gameplay - Darkmoon Faire - Paladin	Lothraxion's Balloon Shop	Give 100 Silver Hand Recruits Divine Shield.	20
	Gameplay - Stormwind - Paladin	Pop Goes Divine Shield	Prevent damage with Divine Shield 40 times.	10
	Gameplay - Stormwind - Paladin	Pop Goes Divine Shield	Prevent damage with Divine Shield 80 times.	10
	Gameplay - Stormwind - Paladin	Pop Goes Divine Shield	Prevent damage with Divine Shield 150 times.	20
	Gameplay - Stormwind - Neutral	Return of the King	Summon Varian, King of Stormwind with Taunt, Rush, and Divine Shield.	20
	Gameplay - Festival of Legends - Paladin	Don't Stop Believing	Give your hero Divine Shield with Starlight Groove 25 times.	10
	Gameplay - Festival of Legends - Paladin	Don't Stop Believing	Give your hero Divine Shield with Starlight Groove 50 times.	10
	Gameplay - Festival of Legends - Paladin	Don't Stop Believing	Give your hero Divine Shield with Starlight Groove 100 times.	20

Lore

Divine Shield is a paladin spell from World of Warcraft that protects the caster from all damage and spells for 8 seconds, in exchange for reducing their damage dealt by half. It is commonly used for surviving burst damage, especially in PvP when the paladin's attackers have just popped their damage-increasing cooldowns. In PvE using Divine Shield as a tank will cause the paladin to lose aggro, making this strictly a last resort, unless a tank swap is desired. In addition to its own 5 minute cooldown, Divine Shield shares a 1 minute cooldown with similar abilities, preventing paladins from chain-casting their many life-saving spells on any one target.

The immunity granted by Divine Shield is almost unique in World of Warcraft, comparable to Ice Block in Hearthstone. Indeed, Ice Block is one of the only other spells in World of Warcraft to grant a similar effect. The immunity granted by Divine Shield is complete, including even falling and drowning damage. Casting it also removes any crowd control on the paladin, including silences. Divine Shield can be removed by the warrior's Shattering Throw and the priest's Mass Dispel, but by nothing else, including standard dispels and cleansing effects.

In contrast to Ice Block, which in World of Warcraft prevents the mage from taking actions for the duration, Divine Shield does not limit the caster's abilities, and paladins are free to cast spells, use abilities or even continue to attack while shielded, although their damage dealt is still reduced by half. Divine Shield is therefore commonly used to allow self-healing, escape on foot, or most infamously the use of a Hearthstone.

Bubble hearthing

"Divine Shields and Hearthstones do not make a hero heroic." - Sayge

Known as bubble hearthing, earlier versions of Divine Shield had a longer duration, allowing time for the paladin to pop the shield and hearth away, all the while immune to attacks or interruption. Especially frustrating in PvP, the technique could be used by paladins to escape combat any time the tides of battle turned against them, even when stunlocked and on the brink of death. This could be reliably used to deny the opponent a well-deserved victory, or simply to hastily escape what appeared too challenging an encounter — often leaving their bewildered allies to suffer an unexpectedly quick and brutal defeat. Given the lore of the paladin as a brave and noble defender, some paladins' reported willingness to flee from battle the moment they were in danger was widely lampooned in the Warcraft community, inspiring the creation of numerous videos and even a song, and the duration was eventually reduced. However, the extended duration was later reintroduced through a special glyph, heralding the return of the bubble hearth.

Gallery

Divine Shield bubble before an unknown patch

Trivia

• Removing a Divine Shield is often referred to as popping it, with the Divine Shield occasionally referred to as a bubble, as in Bubble Paladin. This has its roots in World of Warcraft, where paladins casting Divine Shield are said to bubble, as in bubble hearth. This is even referenced by the game; the Quest for playing Divine Shield minions is named Tiny Bubbles Make Me Happy.

Patch changes

• Patch 16.0.8.39282 (2020-01-09): Effects that grant random targets Divine Shield will now only grant them to minions that do not already have Divine Shield.