One little change that can fix paladins . . .

It was announced earlier today on the European forums that the paladin preview, originally slated for release on Friday the 16th, will now be released Wednesday the 14th. So I am getting this in right under the wire. (source)

I have one, single change that could go a long way to fix many of the Paladin’s issues.

What is it?

Holy Shock becomes a trained ability. First learned at level 10. But, it is reverted to the original version of Holy Shock, where it only does damage (there will be a talent deep in the Holy tree to add the healing component back to it).
This adds another button to the Ret/Prot rotations. So, this one move makes the Ret rotation more complex, and at the same time, kills the 969 rotation for Prot. This also follows the trend we are seeing with Blizz giving low level players more buttons to push.

I do believe that Blizz wants us to choose between different spells whether we are tanking a single mob, or a pack of mobs. So, we Prot paladins need a new single target threat generator. Hello Holy Shock.

Because of this one change, Beacon of Light moves up to the spot in the holy tree where Holy Shock is now, but is otherwise unchanged. In Wrath of the Lich King, Beacon is pretty OP. In the new model of mana management we will see in Cataclysm, it will be a real and serious choice as to whether or not a paladin can afford to keep Beacon up through an entire fight (I doubt they will be able to).

Then, an AoE heal spell (named Aura of Radiance or something like that) is added to the top of the Holy tree (where Beacon of Light sits now).

Thoughts on other changes or new spells . . . .

Paladins need a Gap Closer of some sort. Not that I want a clone of Charge, per say, but we need an ability to get to the mobs quickly. I mean, over the years I have become pretty good at face pulling, but come on.

Paladins need a reliable interrupt that is off the GCD, and that has a short cooldown (8-10 seconds).

Unlike most people, I have no problem with our two “cooldowns”. So one of ours is automatic . . . so what? It comes into play right when you need it to. I can’t tell you how many fights have been salvaged and downed because of Ardent Defender kicking in (I am positive we downed Heroic Gormok sooner because of Ardent Defender). I don’t think it is OP, though, because we only have the one cooldown that we can reliably use for scripted events. So do we need another cooldown? Not in my opinion.

That is all I got for now. I guess we will see tomorrow.