Change is coming, and for many in this community it seems to be a point of understandable frustration and paranoia as to what we will be after 3.0 goes live. This class, not our spec but the class is changing on several fundamental levels, our seals will scale with attack power, many of our damage spells will scale with attack power, Blessing of Salvation is going away, and many of our spells are changing in reaction to core class mechanic changes.
For protection specifically the class is facing a gear change as our gear shifts to Strength and Stamina with no spell damage, except for the odd piece, in sight. This understandably has many people upset and I am sure when the change goes live we will have even more paladins who do not visit message boards or follow news sights even more alarmed. But these changes are coming and I think a healthy amount of skepticism is good irrational fear that we are either being dumbed down or will be “warriors” are unfounded.
But some basic tenets of what we hold true today will be changing:
Anticipation no longer grants 20 Defense: This is will be a huge change for gearing concerns but we must understand that this affects warriors as much as it affects paladins after the patch. Health levels may drop as we have to regem gear for Defense rating to meet the requirement to be uncrittable. I think this is a good thing overall exceeding the critical cap is not hard once you accumulate the gear and yes I know for some that isn’t easy but this is the truth in the long run. 5% to dodge will always be good, 20 Defense not so much if you have gear that compensates for the loss. I think it will diversify gemming and enchanting of gear; but if I am wrong then healthy debate is always warranted.
Warriors Lite: This means that we will look and play like warriors; I beg to differ but again this is more opinion then hard facts. The crux of this argument is usually the gear homogenization and the fact that we won’t have spell damage on our gear but we still do in the form of stamina and since we benefit from both spell power and attack power we still play differently and have different concerns then warriors. Thematically I don’t see a difference in Beta, I still use all the same spells and abilities just the mechanics and theory behind them have changed. But again this is all personal taste anyway.
Change is Inevitable: This class is changing and we can either rail against it or look at the changes understand why they are changing and then play it to our advantage. I don’t think life will be terrible for us, if anything after we tuned the way we should be, this class will be stronger than ever and we won’t face the uphill battle e had before. I know some enjoyed the underdog role, but it is old for me; I gain no sense of satisfaction any more from playing that game and I quite enjoy being on hopefully equal footing everywhere else.
P.S: Warriors, Death Knights, and Druids are not our enemies.
