Prot PvP decline 'Rebuked'

Some time in the last few days I missed the very important announcement that Rebuke would be moved out of the Ret Talent Tree and become a baseline Paladin ability. While this is a very nice quality of life change for us and I am already welcoming it for when the guild hits Maloriak its by far more useful in PvP.

Enjoyed at the end of Wrath and really shining at the beginning of Cataclysm Prot was the Paladin DPS PvP spec of choice due to its superior survivability, utility and equal damage compared to Ret. However as Ret got buffed into its rightful place and with Prot really feeling the effects of any form of CC due to its lose of a magic cleanse, Prot was losing its viability.

With Rebuke coming baseline Prot gains a foot hold again strengthened by the increased damage of Crusader Strike. Sure Prot's damage still will not match Ret's unless we are focused on to build Vengeance but Rebuke puts us very strongly in a support roll for 3's or 5's.

Lets look at what Prot Paladins can bring to the team.

Firstly and most obviously is Avengers Shield, not only does this hit hard but if you glyph it right it will help to combat or kite-ability by slowing opponents while keeping them silenced and unable to retaliate.

Next is JotW which combats my biggest dislike of the spec in Wrath by removing our need for Divine Plea. Thanks to this Mana will almost never be and issue and Mana Drains will not longer be so terrifying.

JotJ works beautifully to help stem the flow of DPS from Melee and Hunters for both you and your team mates.

Vindication works wonders coupled with JotJ to further cripple those melee DPS.

WoG provides some welcomed relief for your healer and can help to hold team members alive for critical seconds should your healers be stunned or silenced etc.

Divine Guradian come unique to us and really shows just what our class is about in PvP, saving others. Perfect for use at the start as everyone starts taking that initial damage or when the opposition starts zerging your healer.


From the Ret tree we bring the staples of;

Crusade brings more aid to the healer as every death you bring about only strengthens your team.

Finally the new PoJ. Should the enemy try to prevent you doing your job you only come back stronger bringing the burst with SoR or backing up your healer in a tight spot with more WoG.


With all of these ability's we also carry HoJ and now Rebuke, making us not only support but also an annoyance for any caster that we can stay in melee of namely healers.

Braking it down we have AS on a 15sec CD with a chance to proc and a 3 sec silence. We then have old HoJ with a talented CD of 40 seconds for a 6 second stun. Finally we now have Rebuke a 4 sec school lockout and interrupt off the GCD with a 10sec CD.
All 3 of these together give us 6+ seconds of AS silence, 6 seconds of stun and 16 seconds of Rebuke lockout every 40 seconds.
That is 28+ seconds of every 40 seconds that we could potentially lock out a healer, now think about that when you doubt Prot's use in PvP.