More Cataclysm Changes

Since my last failed post on the "new" talent tree for Paladins there has been a lot of new information coming out. I have decided to leave the full review of the new face of the class for later when things have settled down more and were not having spells and talents redesigned every few days.
I will however talk a little about my thoughts on a few of the changes and worries we have seen recently.

Firstly Ardent Defender, I'm still not sure what to make of this. While something deep inside me want me to have it, the though of waiting till 35% health even off the GCD makes me worried. We still of cause need to wait and see how it interacts with raid bosses and or 85 health pools but until then I'm looking to skip it in my builds.

Another thing that has me worried is Holy Shield, the current evolution of the spell giving us 0-15% block based on Holy Power(I have to go with the majority here to and sign the partition for the name Zeal). This seems quite low for our short CD and particularly lacking for the "Block a lot" tank class we're meant to be. On top of that it has been announced that it will be exclusive with Inquisition.

Just today the stats for our CD's have nearly been all released and now look as follows;
Divine Protection-20% for 10 Sec-1min CD-No restriction on other spells.
Ardent Defender-20% for and unknown time-3min CD-Only usable below 30% health.
Guardian of Ancient Kings-Unknown amount for unknown time-My guess is on a 10min Talented CD 30min Base-Seems a long CD for our level 85 spell particularly for those who don't spec Prot.
Divine Guardian-20% for everyone but us for 6sec-No CD given-Sad that this no longer effects us but understandable with all the other CD's we have.

While its nice that we have some more flexibility with CD's and no longer lock ourselves out of AW or Bubble by doing so it seems od that we don't have a high reduction CD anymore(baring the change that GoAK hits 50%).

The next issue GC addressed was that Paladins had 5% less Stam bonus than Warriors.

Since I am sure it will be asked based on that info, paladins and warriors have the same Stamina curves now. A naked warrior and paladin of the same race will have the same health at 85. Both Protection trees get the same amount of Stamina as a passive. That number will likely be something like 10 or 15% Stamina depending on tuning. (In our current build it is 15%.) In similar gear, their health should be very similar. We’ll provide the differences in their cool downs and how they tank. DKs and druids are likely to have different amounts of health as well.

While this sounds very good the thing concerning me it that if were all equal Warriors will top out ahead due to their "Stat Stick". That is of cause assuming that Relics stay without stats which we have had hints that they will be getting stats.

My finally concern for us is in class equality. While they are trying to make classes
balanced it seems to me that they are just staying the same distance just a little more advanced. While we get more procs and a balancing of Stam, warriors get Consecrate and a few more nice gadgets. The issue is warriors are getting more of our utility than we are of theirs. In AoE they now have Consecrate, and an AoE DoT, an instant AoE attack, cone AoE attack a cleave and a Revenge cleave. On our part we get Consecrate, and AoE attack, a HoR cleave and if you count it AS as a cleave.
That leaves even counting AS us an AoE DoT and Cone attack behind. On top of that they still have their mobility in charge/intercept and an interrupt which we only get in deep Ret tree inaccessible to Prot.
We do of cause get our own nice tricks that Warriors don't but I'm not sure they compensate for how much utility they have over us.

That's a lot of negativity out of my system now I can keep an eye on the news and look forward to the next news release.