My Thoughts on 3.1 Patch Notes

I dunno. I'm gonna side with BRK on this one. Even though he's mostly talking about his hunter changes -- I think that a good bit of this stuff is going to end up on the cutting room floor. You know, somewhere ON THE GROUND in Ghostcrawler's office. Here we go:

Blessing of Kings – this spell is now a base ability trainable by all paladins.

Alright. Finally, yes this is pretty exciting and I really don't think this is going to change. What is up for debate, however, is whether or not that ability will boost stats by 2%, 10% or something in between. Some believe "we'll get the 10% BoK baseline, it's the only way this would even remotely make sense." I'm not so sure. I actually think that we are going to automagically get BoK for 2% and then it can be talented up to 10% -- and those talent points will be in the first tier of protection (although, really they could go easily into any of the trees).

Exorcism – this spell now causes damage to all types of enemy targets. However, it always critical strikes undead or demon targets. This change should make sure paladin damage doesn’t drop when going from Naxxramas to later tiers of content.

Sshah. As if. This will never stand. Even if the intent behind this change lasts there will definitely be some kind if nerf to this. With the Glyph and a little skill (really miniscule amounts of skill) paladins will be unstoppable in PVP. I have zero doubts in my mind that this will change somehow. I DO think it's a great idea though -- another general purpose ranged spell is wonderful. I just don't think it will make it through testing without some nerf bombs.

Shield of the Templar now causes your Avenger’s Shield and Shield of the Righteousness to silence targets for 3 sec. The old damage bonus of this talent has been folded into Holy Shield, Avenger’s Shield, and Shield of the Righteousness.

I think that this silence effect is pretty awesome. I was just saying how paladins would give their mommas away for a chance to deal with casters -- and this does it. This will make it much easier to deal with casters on PVE pulls, but also taking down that annoying warlock who just eats your brains and there's nothing you can do about it. Folding in the extra damage will be nice, but since most of us have it already, it shouldn't change much.

Ardent Defender, Improved Hammer of Justice, One-Handed Weapon Specialization and more have had their ranks reduced.

Does this actually mean that they are freeing up more points in the prot tree for some new talents? I truly do not know the answer to this. If you do, let me know. It does not say that the effects are changed, just less ranks. So, I guess I'm all for this one.

Guarded by the Light – no longer reduces the mana cost of shield spells, but now has a 50/100% chance to refresh Divine Plea duration.

This one also seems to be a little lacking in true details. So if I put max points into this talent what procs the refresh? Does just having DP up mean that it's never going to end? It'll just keep on going? I'm not sure I totally understand this one, but if it means more mana regeneration I'm all for that. It will make a huge difference for non-main (offtanks or just someone who is trying to dps a bit) tanks in PVE and it will mean that prot pvpers will feel a bit better about their insanely low MP.

Judgements of the Just – now also reduces the cooldown of Hammer of Justice by 10/20 seconds and increases the duration of the Seal of Justice stun effect by 0.5/1 second.

This feels like a mostly PVP talent change. This means we'll have our awesome stun available to us, with talents every 10 seconds. I must say this also feels a little overpowered. With the Exorcism change and now this, ALONG with the Shield of the Templar silencing effect -- we'll be able to stand tall against casters -- they will run in fear from our holy might. I think this will also get herded into the ole nerf pen too. It's just a bit much all told.

Truly I think that these changes are great and I would love to see them get to Live and then stay. I fear this is just not the case though. The Exorcism buff alone will be high on the nerfing target list. If these do manage to make it all the way into the game it will mean a lot more utility for maintankadins, and it will give protection paladins true viability in PVP, something they really never had before -- despite their massive HP.