It would seem that this ability, Hammer of the Righteous; should not warrant a huge amount of testing but given its place as the 51 point talent for Protection Paladins this ability deserves some thought. It is the lofty goal at the bottom of the tree, if you have gone this far then why not pick it up, and I think personally it is a fun ability that adds a great deal of interactivity to the class.
I have already espoused the virtues of this ability and I think it will become a mainstay of all paladin tanks; it does solid damage, solid threat, and applies seals to multiple targets; allowing us to tank multiple mobs without the need of Consecrate; although with the current changes to mana and Blessing of Sanctuary on the Beta mana is pretty easy to keep topped off. I rarely ran low, and I think that mana regen on the Beta is probably over tuned to be on the easy side overall.
More testing needs to be done but early reports suggest that the damage on Hammer of the Righteous is now doing damage based off of the weapon DPS instead of the damage range… see this thread on maintankadin.com for more information on this.
The Nexus
I did the Nexus tonight for the first time, myself two guild mates and a two folks from the beta. Our party makeup was Fury Warrior, Shadow Priest, Elemental Shaman, Holy Paladin and a Protection Paladin. The instance is very blue, but evocative and I liked the fact you can choose your path before tackling the first boss. We went to Ormorok the Tree-Shaper first.
The trash mobs here consisted of elemental trees and dryads, and small plant thrasher mobs that never actually died and just cocooned themselves to come back and pester us until you kill the boss. The boss himself was pretty straightforward tank and spank but he created spikes in the ground in a large area that shot you up in the air, they are relatively easy to avoid and he does not hit overly hard. We one shot this boss pretty easily and then made our way to Anomolous.
His trash was mostly energy like elemental spirits and dragon-kin. The most interesting mobs were Chaotic Rifts that seemed to create or summon Crazed Mana-Wraiths; I think the mana-wraiths do a mana drain because I was running low on mana consistently on these pulls. I recommend killing the Chaotic Rifts first to stop the spawns. The boss, Anomolous, was very interesting though; he attacks like a tank and spank and then turns into a chaotic rift and summons adds… the fight is very chaotic and long but a lot of fun. It keeps the tank on the move and I like that not too difficult but definitely fun and challenging.
We one shot this boss as well and made our way to Grand Magus Telestra; the trash pulls here were straight forward with humanoid spell casters making up the bulk of the pulls. The boss herself is another interesting fight, at 50% she splits into three versions one that is a shadow priest, another that is a fire mage, and a third that casts constant blizzards. Our healer died on this fight, and the elemental shaman kept me up and did damage. We actually wiped on her the first time, the split caught us by surprise. Once we dispatched these bosses we hit the final boss Keristrasza.
She is at the center and you thaw her out and then have to defeat her. She puts a freezing affect on you; but if you keep moving it eventually lessens but if you stand still it freezes you in place. This is again another mobile fight where strafe will be your friend; not overly difficult and we one shot this fight as well. Overall I like the Nexus, solid fun and very interesting boss encounters. In the gallery I have attached an image of a parse of my damage against Oromok for an idea of what Protection DPS will be like for those geared at the Tier 5/Tier 6 level.
Only thing that sucks is that I have gained several pieces of gear since then.
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I still have a long time till part 2, but I love this game.