Introduction
Hey everyone! I’m Asa Spades, an analyst for Method specializing in tanks. I mostly sit behind the scenes and dig through logs to see how things interact as well as help optimize both damage and survivability for tanks in raids and mythic plus.
I am also a Useful Minion in Acherus, the Death Knight class discord. I also update and maintain the apl and simc for Blood Death Knight and help maintain the apl for Protection Warrior, Protection Paladin and Guardian Druid as well.
What has changed
Patch 10.0.5 Changes
In patch 10.0.5, Protection Paladins saw only minor bug fixes and improvements. While it may not drastically change gameplay, it does bring some quality of life enhancements.
First Impressions
Protection Paladin has gone through a lot of changes coming into Dragonflight. The most notable is that Avenger’s Shield no longer generates holy power. This change compounds throughout the spec causing the spec to no longer play the same as it did in Shadowlands. We’ll dive into more detail on how the changes specifically impacted Protection Paladin later on, but all-in-all the change isn’t that bad anymore. You’re still able to keep 100% uptime on Shield of the Righteous, you just need to be more conscientious of your holy power economy, and the additional buffs that Avenger’s Shield gives nearly makes up for the loss of the holy power generation. The spec is still fun and rewarding to play in my opinion, it just plays very differently to how it has been for the last few years.