WotLK Beta: A Few Thoughs on Protection Paladin

Just hit lvl 71 and at the trainer so get to pick up Divine Plea and new rank of Blessing of Wisdom. Maybe will respec and try something else. As for Divine Plea I can't see that being useful Tanking when you may need mana being starved for it, inbetween quick pulls maybe though.

So far looking at our talent tree and new talents we have gotten as a Protection Paladin I think to myself, nothing deep in our new Talent Tree add much to the art of real Tanking/Mitigation or Avoidance especially to spells. That's just my take.

We get a few Talents like Touched by Light to increase our spell power 30% based off of Stamina which we eventually will have allot of and adds to our Holy threat, ok great. Three talent points. Judgement of the Just to reduce Melee attack speed by max 20% for another 2 points. A Thunderclap it is. But thinking of it I never had problems mobs hitting me fast and eating Holy Shield charges for threat either.

Then we have Shield of the Templar for increase damage (how much %?) and reduce mana cost of our shields. We have all those three same shields already deep in our talent tree. I mean, why not just buff the existing shield spells we already have? Its not like a Protection Paladin all of a sudden going to go out and pawn someone or in PvP either just buffing their shields for damage. I mean any dps class will just laugh at us for trying. Why create another talent just for buffing damage to 3 talents we already have.

Why not something entirely new that adds to Tanking or some other needed defensive tanking stats. Then next to that we have another 2 point talent again to reduce mana cost of or Consecration, Holy Wrath and Avengers Shield. Most those situational spells except consecration maybe. But that's 2 different talents DEEP in our core talent tree just to reduce mana cost of spells alone without really adding much in talents to being in front of a nasty Boss.

Last we have Hammer of the Righteous. A nice talent it is and probably the only real talent I'm really excited about for tanking at least. Be nice it did hit 3 additional targets instead of currently 2. Nice for holding and building threat on multiple mobs vs just having to drop or spam consecration all the time eating our precious mana away. Retribution gets deep in their tree as a 51 point talent Divine Storm which Instant hits 4 targets for Holy damage with a healing component. That is awesome talent. Hmm, kinda wish we had something like that but different. Currently though there are more spell avoidance talents in the Ret tree than in the Protection tree as well that just not right. We get nothing new for that either.

If you just about take away the fact that Rets don't have a Shield but a big 2H weapon. Just about looks like a Rets brings more to a Instance group than a Protec Paladin at this point. Seems like may be competition to a 10 man raid if deciding between a Warrior or a Paladin Tank with a Retribution spec in party which I'm all glad they are their.

Protection Tree just seem BLOATED. Allot of our talents just needs to be consolidated and folded into other talents and some just needs to be redesigned. Why not like fold like for example fold and buff Reckoning into One-Handed Specialization free up 5 Talent points and give us a useful talent to do our job which is Tanking. Blessing of Sanctuary is the poster child of a talent tied to Holy Shield that desperately needs to be designed to use fullness for Protection. To me seems the Devs know Protection spec have mana issues. Multiple talents as bandages just for addressing spell mana costs if its a issue.

Consolidate or rewrite some our talents. If you look in the Retribution tree many their new talents actually do what they like to do, deal massive damage and some of them even heal their group. A Protection Spec Paladin can't even do that. Needless to say we have nothing like that for even in a 5 man or Heroic either. I just don't see much deep in our talent tree that adds much to real tanking or added tanking abilities.

I still enjoy my class and spec for what it is and I will level all the way to the lvl cap as I've always done by way of the my hardened Shield and cold steel blade. Do you expect any less of me to do otherwise! Yes our damage ability sucks like a Interstellar Black Hole. We are still slow to kill anything except by mean of AoEing it all in groups for efficiency. And yes in Northrend just about every Paladin that (I see) running around have a Massive 2H strapped to their back at the moment, you don't have to ask me why. Hope the Holy Light touch the Devs and enlightening us a bit. Anyway just my thoughts.