So Blizzard are asking for tanking feedback on cooldowns. Shockingly and very surprisingly there is no obvious way for us Europeans to offer feedback we know will actually count! Oh wait, that’s the norm!

Anyway here’s my two cents worth. Firstly cooldowns should exist in one of three categories, short, medium  and long. Short cooldowns should be a one to two minute (or so) cooldown which for defensive purposes allow you (the tank) to better survive that predictable big hit or likely oom healer point, i.e. a straight damage reduction for X seconds deal. The medium category should be something which is on a longer, three to four minute cooldown. So it may be available once or twice per encounter. It should do something more significant. For example deflect a percentage of raid damage (ala [Divine Guardian], increase tank, group or raid damage output, etc. Finally a longer cooldown ability on a five to fifteen minute cooldown. Something available at max just once per attempt (perhaps not even every attempt – annoying as that may be!). This should do something “amazing”, [Ardent Defender] for example, i.e. something that stops the tank, or someone else from dying or preventing the raid from wiping.

Talent-wise – I tend to think the max cooldown ability should be a deep tree talent as per Ardent Defender. It shouldn’t be a generally available spell. Wouldn’t that make it compulsory? Perhaps, so what? For the shorter cooldown abilities it may be nice to see increases in specific damage reduction but be a trade off versus something else, e.g. “Magical Defense, when activated during Divine Protection, reduces magic damage taken by an additional 7/14/20% but reduces the effectiveness against physical damage by 10/20/30%“. That makes it necessary to think not only about using DP at the right time but also the worth of activating “Magical Defense”. I tend to think all tanks should have such talent based trade offs for cooldowns in much the same way as Paladins do for using [Avenging Wrath] vs. [Forbearance].

Glyphs should offer more than simple cooldown or increased damage taken. Maybe a minor glyph offering a small increase in damage absorbed – 1 or 2%. Let’s face it most minor glyphs are pointless and this would at least offer something more useful. I’d like to see major glyphs offer something more substantial, a change in the mechanics of a cooldown. For example it may cause Divine Protection to have a [Radiance] type effect. Maybe not on use but rather on chance, so mobs hitting a paladin with DP up have a chance to be stunned and be hit, backlash style, by the damage the paladin would’ve taken.

There are other “cooldowns” of  course – offensive mostly. Such as [Avenging Wrath] (good as is), [Intervene], [Berserk]. I feel, certainly for paladins most of these are fine. What I do miss as a paladin is range closer and a reliable method for breaking fear.

Of course most “standard rotations” are comprised abilities on cooldowns. As others have noted in the topic the 969 rotation for paladins is kinda boring – even if it does involve hitting more buttons (macros aside!) vs. say warriors and druids. I’d like to see an on proc ability and for existing abilities to be more specific to encounters/situations. That may see [Hammer of the Righteous] damage reduced and thus be replaced in single encounter use with another, new ability – Holy Strike or some such. Rather than used because it still does good damage/threat and fits the rotation nicely. For on proc abilities a [Holy Shield] block could cause [Shield of Righteousness] to become available for X seconds (increasing its damage/threat as a result of the change). Judgement is pretty lacklustre – it serves a purpose to place debuffs on the target and little else. That’s fine but should it be considered part of a normal rotation? Not so sure.