Here is some feedback on the Protection Paladin going into BFA based on my time tanking Mythic raids in Legion and playing the BFA Alpha/Beta. My post is focused on the problems of Paladin tanks. Feel free to post your thoughts too.

Light of the Protector and the GCD
Why are reactive healing abilities on the GCD? It kills any min/maxing of the rotation and heal. It forces a trade of SOTR CDR from Judgment or Consecration uptime to heal myself. With the changes to SOTR and the loss of the Consecration duration artifact trait, this is a much bigger loss in BFA. And with how little margin for error a Paladin tank has in general, the difference between being able to reactively heal and not is a matter of life and death.

Light of the Protector Scaling
It does really well on the pre-mades in 185 gear but in the 120 scaled Islands or the 120 scaled raid testing Light of the Protector doesn't scale as well. Based on raid testing, Light of the Protector heals for no more than 20% of my health for non-critical heals. I would look at how it scales relative to player health so it keeps up and stays as an important part of the Paladin tank kit.

Avenging Wrath on the GCD
Avenging Wrath can be used as a survival cooldown or it can be used as a DPS cooldown. With it being on the GCD, we lose a lot of flexibility to decide when we can use it. We have to trade SOTR CDR from Judgment or Consecration uptime for it. Just think about the actual pull of a boss or a trash pack. I Avenging Wrath and maybe Seraphim on the pull, then I can start drop Consecration, or Judge? That's 1-3 seconds of deadtime where we trade all of our survivability for cooldowns and frankly more vulnerable to death. I could SOTR then run in on the pull but using SOTR outside of Consecration is poor play. And I'll go back to some of the same reasoning as the Light of the Protector GCD issue. The difference between Paladins and another tank is that the moment to moment decisions matter on a Paladin because the margin for error is so much smaller.

Talent Tier Level 75
This is the number #1 problem tier headed into BFA. Hand of the Protector is generally seen as the “default” choice of this talent tier. The shorter cooldown our self heal is going to be a god send for any content. And frankly, the other two talents aren’t up to its level in any type of fashion. Final Stand is bad and should not exist. The situations in Legion where it was useful are countable on one hand. And Unbreakable Spirit is a nice add but it’s only going to be taken for the AD CDR, if at all. The value of the Lay on Hands or Divine Shield portions are non-existent. Finally, if you look at pick rates in logs, its picked by 85% of players on all Mythic Antorus Raid encounters, 89% of all Mythic Tomb of Sargeras encounters and 87% of all Mythic Nighthold encounters. This tier is basically a non-choice in current state.

Talent Tier Level 90
This is the number #2 problem talent tier headed into BFA. All three choices, if you can call them that, are sad and don’t feel meaningful. The only thing that feels meaningful is the snare on Consecrated Ground. Otherwise, Judgment of Light and Aegis of Light never really feel like meaningful choices. Judgment is usually default because it’s just free passive healing. But the healing is ultimately not significant when compared to similar mechanics. And Aegis of Light has a number of usability issues in group content. For example, it limits the use of abilities for 6 seconds and it places teammates directly behind the tank which is a poor place to group in many cases. This talent tier can be summarized as the following: ‘Do I need to kite/snare mobs? If not, take Judgment of Light.’ It’s not fun, meaningful or interesting.

Consecrated Hammer
This talent should not exist. With good play, you’ll get far more significant value from Holy Shield or Blessed Hammer. It’s not a valid talent option for any type of serious play.

Retribution Aura
This talent should not exist. Its <1% damage total and not worth losing the double horse or Spell Warding. And this is even truer in a world where Divine Steed and magic DR are both nerfed.

Protection Paladin Feedback