Prot needs some mana regen (?)

[Corlas]

I think Blizzard has done an excellent job with Paladins so far in Lich King. The one thing I see really lacking at the moment is some active mana regen for Protection.

The lower costs of the new abilities will help a lot, I'm sure. And the new "Paladin Evocate" is nice, but not useful in melee. Ret is set for mana regen, and Holy, with their gear that will already have Int and Mana per 5 on it, combined with the fact that they can heal while meleeing with JoW and SoW, should be set.

Prot seems the only spec left behind with the only way to regen mana, aside from JoW or really gimping your DPS and threat with SoW, is to be hit and have someone else heal you.

I would love to see an ability where, for example, each blocked attack gives you 5% of your mana back, or something similar. Make it a passive talent in place of Blessing of Sanc.

I really hope Blizzard doesn't let Lich King go out without giving Prot a nice mana regen ability.

[Arcand]

Unequip your shield?

[PsiVen]

I think we're expected to be able to conserve mana in 5-mans much more than we do now. Consecration is more expensive now, but it's also more powerful and the lower ranks much cheaper due to talents. I'm not so sure how it'll work out having a base mana pool without a new rank of Spiritual Attunement though.

I don't think mana per 5 is going to last much longer. It's basically garbage in the new regen model and should be replaced with spirit, which should be made useful to paladins and shaman.

[Snake-Aes]

Hm. Holy won't melee while healing
First reason: They are, ahem, casting!
Second Reason: The closer to the boss, the more likely you'll need to move. The more likely you won't be doing your healer job
Third: 30 yards ranged judgment.

No one can say a thing about prot mana just yet. Levelign wise it does blow but it's how it's meant to be, more or less. Our mana regen comes from our damage input. I don't see that changing.
And if it changes, it'll probably be a higher Spiritual Attunement scaling.

[Flipthebird]

I thought Spiritual Attunement was our mana regen? amirite?
We also have that whole Wisdom thing...

So, if you're raiding, and you're getting good healz, you should be getting good mana regen...right?

And if you're out grinding, you can use Wisdom and get good mana regen, right?

I consider myself a total nublet when it comes to all this still, but those are just what came to mind when I read your post...

[Lore]

Spiritual Attunement + JoW scaling = winnar

[Karock]

Spiritual Attunement + JoW scaling = winnar

The question is will JoW be enough to put us on par with warriors trying to maintain second threat on a mob?

At least now we won't have to pick between JoW and judging SotC if there's no ret paladin in the raid.

[Fridmarr]

Spiritual Attunement + JoW scaling = winnar

The question is will JoW be enough to put us on par with warriors trying to maintain second threat on a mob?

At least now we won't have to pick between JoW and judging SotC if there's no ret paladin in the raid.

In a raid, we'll also have blessing of wisdom and possibly a mana totem, on top of the likely increase in damage.

One issue I'm seeing in 5 mans, is that we have a smaller base mana pool, so the opening sequence can put you behind the curve a bit, and it is hard to regen that back. Yes, JoW scaling is nice, but you still have to conserve a good bit. It's nice that when there are less than 4 mobs, you don't have to consecrate as that is very expensive.

[Boldbeard]

I dont think consecration is meant to be used as anything other than supplimentive and situational DPS/TPS addition and as such should not be part of our regular rotation.

If you are instancing or raiding, you should not have a problem keeping mana with spiritual attunement....ever...unless you overgear/level the content.

Solo'ing is the only area where I think mana might be a problem. But given that HS is changing and you can probably live with rank 1 HS for life, have no need to spam consecration, have mana efficient and proactive spells, do not need to reseal constantly, and can get essentially a JoW effect while still doing holy dmg.....I just dont think we'll have a huge problem with mana.

[Fridmarr]

I dont think consecration is meant to be used as anything other than supplimentive and situational DPS/TPS addition and as such should not be part of our regular rotation.

If you are instancing or raiding, you should not have a problem keeping mana with spiritual attunement....ever...unless you overgear/level the content.

Solo'ing is the only area where I think mana might be a problem. But given that HS is changing and you can probably live with rank 1 HS for life, have no need to spam consecration, have mana efficient and proactive spells, do not need to reseal constantly, and can get essentially a JoW effect while still doing holy dmg.....I just dont think we'll have a huge problem with mana.

That's definitely not the case in instances. Even if you don't overgear the content spiritual attunement won't resupply your mana. Heck, I'm tanking a lot of this in DPS gear and still have to conserve.

[Dawnseeker]

Spiritual Attunement + JoW scaling = winnar

The question is will JoW be enough to put us on par with warriors trying to maintain second threat on a mob?

At least now we won't have to pick between JoW and judging SotC if there's no ret paladin in the raid.

Don't forget, Hand of Sacrifice will also help us with this (offtanking that is).

[Corlas]

Hm. Holy won't melee while healing
First reason: They are, ahem, casting!
Second Reason: The closer to the boss, the more likely you'll need to move. The more likely you won't be doing your healer job
Third: 30 yards ranged judgment.

Spells are not currently resetting the weapon swing timer. So it is entirely possible for a Holy Paladin get a nice healing rotation such as Swing->FoL->FoL->Swing. It does remain to be seen if movement fights or heavy AOE damage make this work, but the idea is very attractive.

As for Prot mana regen, my concern isn't so much in main tanking raids as it is 5 mans and solo or small group play. Scaling on JoW will help this as will cheaper core Prot abilities, but it doesn't seem to be anywhere near the level of other classes or specs, especially other melee builds.

All other tanking classes rely on others for their health regen, of course, but Paladins are the only one who also relies on others for their sustained aggro generation. I guess I'm in the minority on this, I don't see that as a good thing. If nothing else it seriously limits your options when not tanking. (cue complaints about "I'm a tank that's all I do, blah blah blah")

[Karock]

Spiritual Attunement + JoW scaling = winnar

The question is will JoW be enough to put us on par with warriors trying to maintain second threat on a mob?

At least now we won't have to pick between JoW and judging SotC if there's no ret paladin in the raid.

Don't forget, Hand of Sacrifice will also help us with this (offtanking that is).

As should Divine Guardian.

[Tahl]

I think Blizzard's intention is to have Paladins' regen mana in the same way as Warriors/Druids -- a lot from being hit, and a little from hitting mobs. SA + JoW gives that effect. All classes have to manage their use to maximize threat without "overspending", especially if they outgear the content. Is our mana regen effective or does it need tweaking? Time will tell, but it was just fine at 70.

Perhaps our tendency to spam every single ability we have at the start of the fight is one downfall; our dps has the luxury of opening up quite a bit sooner (and they are very spoiled to paladin front-loaded threat), but at the cost of us blowing a lot of our reserve mana. Making dps slowly ramp up instead of immediately nuking would mean we could be more efficient in establishing a threat lead. They have learned to do it for warriors; why not give pallies a few seconds slack time also, unless there's some compelling reason why dps has to go full-out 0.1 seconds after the pull? I'd think in 5-mans if you're having mana issues, make them count a few SoV debuffs (3-5) while the mobs beat on your Holy Shield and much improved retribution aura, and you'd have the same large threat lead but with a nearly full mana bar still. It's just a matter of changing their habits.

It's possible that Blizz balances us with a small disadvantage on mana regen for short fights like 5 mans since we start at full "rage" instead of almost empty. On raid bosses all of us are usually fine, or even have "infinite mana".

There are also a lot of abilities we can use to boost mana in a pinch, while rage is a bit harder to regen. Intellect and mana regen buffs help our mana bar, but there's no buff that increases theirs over 100 or gives them more rage regen than is already built-in to their class. Having a shadow priest (or something similar) plus blessing and judgement of wisdom or mana totems is nice. Only being able to chug one mana potion during combat is a change we'll have to adjust to though.

With HotR activating Sor/SoV, one cast of consecrate (rank6 -- I always used rank4 in BC so that should scale fine!), ret aura, and some lazy tab targeting every so often should keep groups up to 5-6 off the healer easily while you nuke the main target. The biggest offender in killing mana efficiency is likely to be Consecrate Rank 8, which shouldn't be needed except in extreme Hyjal-like aoe tanking. Perhaps we're just burning mana too fast since we're used to spamming everything we have.

Again, time will tell how it looks at level 80.

[Tev]

Bottom line is a lot of our abilities seems mana scaled for use by someone with the mana pool of a holy pally (annoyingly this even includes Avengers Shield). Fortunately they are fixing this a bit with HotR and its low cost, but its still the point that why should tanks be punished at all for being overgeared? No other class archtype is punished in this way, so in my opinion its stupid that tanks are.

RF needs to have some tie in talents deep in prot (yeah I know, more bloat, just what we need /sigh) that help to restore mana based on block/dodge/parry. I mean even something like 40~50 mana back on a block and 80~100 on a dodge/parry would go a long way to helping normalize mana regain based on how good your gear is.

Seriously though, Tanks aren't asking for scaling on rage/mana regen from tanking, just a normalization so we don't have to downgear. It looks like this shouldn't be an issue for DKs since their rune/runic power system seems fairly normalized, if not somewhat scaling based on gear.