What's changing in Cataclysm?

[Arcand]

The most detailed and current information about Cataclysm is in the forum of the same name.
In case you don't feel like digging around in there, this is a simple breakdown of how our
tanking mechanics are changing.

We have a chance to get combo points - Holy Power (HP) - from using some of our abilities.
The maximum we can hold at once is 3 HP. You can hit HP-requiring abilities whenever you have
any amount of HP, they consume all your HP and the more HP you had the more powerfully they work.
(You can see why they're likened to combo points.) We can use Holy Power to...
* Cast an instant self-heal (Word of Glory)
* Smack one target (Shield of the Righteous)
* Buff our holy damage (Inquisition)


Hammer of the Righteous doesn't hit three people anymore. It hits one person and
then there's an explosion that hits everybody nearby. It applies Vindication to the
main target. HotR generates 1HP, always.

We have Crusader Strike. It would generally be something we'd only do when everything
else is on cooldown, but it's one of our better Holy Power generators. It generates
1HP, always. It shares a cooldown with Hammer but is currently worse than Hammer
in all respects. Tuning may(will presumably) make it superior to Hammer on single targets.
CS applies Vindication too.

You don't cast Holy Shield anymore. The buff still exists but it comes up as
a side effect of casting...

Shield of the Righteous (yes, renamed) now requires Holy Power and applies
Holy Shield.

Holy Wrath can now hit anything. If it hits undead or demons, it stuns them.

Avenger's Shield has a shorter cooldown, and we get a talent that sometimes
instantly finishes its cooldown when you Hammer or Crusader Strike somebody.
(The talent's called Grand Crusader.)

Consecration is now more like Death and Decay - cooldown significantly exceeds duration.
Drop it once to gather up a pull, but you won't be spamming it.

Cooldowns, and the relative strengths of abilities, are still in flux so I've mostly avoided
talking about them. As those values firm up I'll increase the level of detail here, and a
'How to tank in Cataclysm' primer will appear in due course.