The WotLK Beta Patches Notes are out, and I’m sure you’ve heard plenty about them.

Although there are certainly changes and tweaks to be made before WotLK is released, one thing seems clear: the Paladin class is getting revamped. One of the major changes involves Blessings – and the fact that many of them no longer exist.

Blessing of Salvation, renamed Hand of Salvation, now reduces total threat on the target by 2% per second for 10 seconds while also reducing all damage and healing done by 10%. Only one Hand spell can be on the target per paladin at any one time. Now costs 6% of base mana.

What the Heck Is a “Hand”?

Great question. It seems like they’re all of the old blessings that really didn’t deserve to be blessings.

Let’s look at the list. Blessing of Freedom, Blessing of Protection, and Blessing of Sacrifice have all been converted to hands. Their new versions operate more or less the same as the old ones, except that they don’t wipe off blessings.

It’s about time. All three of these were temporary buffs, and they never fit into the scheme of a “blessing.” Other blessings – like Might, Wisdom, Kings – are semi-permanent buffs. Sure, you’ve got to refresh them every 10/30 minutes, but they’re intended to be up all the time. Freedom, Protection, and Sacrifice were all intended to be situational buffs, with a brief duration and sometimes a cooldown.

It’s just plain annoying that casting BoP on somebody wipes off their old blessing, and the “Hand” mechanism is a welcome change.

But… What Happened to Salvation?

Blessing of Salvation is the only Blesing-turned-Hand that went through a major reworking.

The old Salvation did fit into the scheme of a Blessing. It was intended to be long term. You always wanted your DPS to have the threat reduction. There was nothing temporary or situational about it.

With the patch, the old Salvation is dead. The new one is very much a “Hand,” like BoP. It’s situational and reactive. Rather than give a person a static reduction in threat, Hand of Salvation allows a Paladin to bitch-slap a DPSer and bring him back down the threat meter.

This radical change begs two questions: will Paladins use Hand of Salvation, and will tanks be able to keep up?

Tanks Best Friend

As a tank, I’m sure I’ll use Hand of Salvation all the time. I constantly watch Omen, and I’m always aware of where I am in relation to the DPS.

I keep such a close eye on it, because it allows me to gauge how hard I need to push to maintain aggro. If I’m well above the DPS on threat, I don’t need to blow all my mana – I can save some for the next fight.

There are certainly times when I wish I could grab a Rogue by the throat and slap his “Vanish,” button. Aggro dumps are great tools to open up your DPS possibilities – but too many people wait too long (or forget entirely) to use them. If you have an aggro dump (Vanish, Invisibility, Soul Shatter, etc), and you ever get close to the tank in threat, it should be on cooldown by the end of every Boss Fight.

The great thing about Hand of Salvation is that it puts me in charge of dropping someone else’s threat. It’s also a nice little threat to them – if they get too close I’ll slap them with the hand and they’ll lose 10% of their damage for 10 seconds. A nice little incentive for the DPS-sensitive Rogues to vanish or feint earlier than usual.

As a healer, on the other hand, I doubt I’ll ever use it. I spend far more time looking at health bars than at Omen, so I wouldn’t realize who to use it on or when to use it. It’d be nice to have in a bind, but I’d use it far less often.

Can Tanks Keep Up?

Another change pending in WotLK seems to be boosting the threat possibilities of tanks.

First, let’s take a look at Warriors. Defensive Stance will now boost threat by 45%, and the old talent required to do so has been replaced by one that increases critical strike chance. Talents have also been modified to increase damage done by Revenge and add threat to Concussive Blow. A new talent grants a chance for a free and instant shield slam. Along with some tweaks to rage generation, I think they’ll be ok.

What about our good Paladins? We’re getting our own version of Shield Slam – Shield of Righteousness. /drool. Another new talent boosts damage and reduces mana cost, and another one gives you a 20% chance on parrying or dodging to cast Consecration at a 50% mana discount. As if that weren’t enough, you can also get a bonus to your spell power equal to 30% of your Stamina.

If I have enough mana, I rarely ever have threat issues. With the new talents improving mana efficiency (I love Guarded by the Light), that should be much less of a problem. With new threat causing maneuvers on top of that, I think we’ll do just fine.

I don’t know enough about Druid tanking to know what’s goin’ on… but I think Paladins will be just fine with threat. Good bye Blessing of Salvation, and good riddence. We don’t need you anymore.