More First Impressions of 3.2

The Paladin changes are overall pretty fantastic.

The change to Exorcism has taken away one ranged pick up ability, and some of the damage/threat output, but from the instances I've tanked so far - several heroics and Naxx 10 - it won't be a big issue. I'm surprised at how quickly I've gotten out of the habit of hitting the key for Exorcism (I replaced it on my action bar with Sacred Shield) when trying to grab adds.

The change to Blessing of Sanctuary is fantastic, but also bugged. No longer having to choose between the additional health of Kings and the mana return/damage reduction of Sanctuary is great in 5 or 10 man groups where I'm the only Paladin.

Between the changes to Shield of Righteousness and Seal of Vengeance, I think Prot Paladin single target DPS is about the same as it was before - possibly a bit higher, I haven't really looked at numbers. I'll have to look at the damage I get tanking Emalon adds to have more of an idea how much difference it has made.

The removal of the duration on Righteous Fury is fantastic, though I noticed that the mana cost hasn't been removed. I was hoping for a 0 mana, toggleable ability similar to auras. Righteous Fury contributes a large chunk of my buffing mana consumption, which becomes a serious problem when being combat ressed during boss encounters (I have just over 5.5k mana, buffing costs me a large percentage of that).

The Ardent Defender change is fantastic. It saved my ass on the Kel'Thuzad fight when we were finishing off Naxx 10 (I swear I was out of that void zone), and seems like it will help a lot on fights like Mimiron and General Vezax where there's the potential to take a large amount of damage quickly that healers may not be prepared for.

The only new content I've seen so far is the 5 man, Trial of the Champion. I ran it on both heroic and normal (losing a roll on the new tank trinket), and was overall very disappointed with it.

Having to use mounts and joust for the first boss(es) is a neat idea, except that I HATE the jousting on WoW with a passion. It seems clumsy and awkward, but that might just be because I'm no good at it, I don't know.

After that it was just general tank and spank trash, no seemingly great challenge. We wiped once on the first boss (on the jousting part), but after that we only had a couple of deaths from people pulling additional groups before the second boss fight. Maybe I'm just too used to Ulduar at this point, though.

I might see if I can DPS some heroics later today to see what the changes are like from the Retribution point of view, then possibly try out the new battleground. Holy Paladins are, from what I saw in Naxx last night, now insane. I think the Paladin we had (who isn't even geared well enough for Ulduar) could have solo healed a large amount of it.

Dual Specialization for the Protection Paladin

With the introduction of dual specialization, I've been giving a lot of thought to which is the best secondary spec for me. I initially collected a set of Retribution gear from heroics, with a few emblem of heroism and crafted pieces thrown in. When dual specialization went in, I spent my 1000 gold and opted for Protection and Retribution.

I have also (rather slowly) been collecting a set of Holy gear. I've even passed on a few items of Retribution gear stating that I'm planning on switching my offspec to Holy at some later date. Then I thought that, actually, having Holy as my offspec is going to be less useful than Retribution.

The main advantage of Retribution as a secondary spec is being able to switch to a DPS role for fights that only require a single tank, such as Loatheb and Sapphiron in Naxxramas or Hodir in Ulduar. Obviously this guarantees wipes if the main (and only) tank for that fight dies, but that's the price for the additional person DPSing in the raid. And, to date, fights such as this are the only time that I've really used Retribution.

Holy would be considerably more useful if I weren't going to be reliably called on to tank for guild raids. If this were the case, being able to fill a healer spot in a raid would be beneficial. But since I'm almost always going to be tanking, and bosses that only require a single tank don't tend to require extra healers, I have a feeling Holy as an offspec would go entirely unused.

Oh Thorim, how I love/hate you

When I first started tanking, I knew that I was going to have to take on more responsibility than other members of the group. After all, the main reason I started tanking was because I didn't want to trust other people to do it competently. I knew that this decision would result in the majority of boss fights being stressful for me even if they're relatively relaxed for others, and I accepted that.

Anybody who has raided enough in Ulduar to have experienced the Thorim fight knows that it's relatively hectic. Particularly if you're left in the arena - which, as a Paladin tank, I am - to deal with wave after wave of adds coming down. It's tense and exciting and can be incredibly draining.

The key to success is learning to keep track of everything; something I assume most tanks did a long time ago. What you have available to pick up adds at range at any given time, what adds to expect next, what adds you currently have to deal with, who else in your group has aggro. It's certainly not easy, but there are things to make it easier.

A couple of tips:
1. /console cameradistancemaxfactor 4 should allow you to see the whole of the arena and pick out the important adds immediately when you zoom right out.
2. Save your ranged cooldowns. Exorcism and Avenger's Shield are useful for additional DPS when you're tanking at melee range, but you never know when you'll need one or the other for picking up an add because you have nothing else off cooldown.
3. Have your group stack on top of you in the centre of the arena, and keep consecration up at all times. This should be sufficient to keep threat on the smaller, inconsequential adds.