[Paladin] WotLK testing: the lack of int and you

I asked earlier what people wanted tested in Wrath. It might be a bit before I get to test everything (in particular, I doubt seriously I'll be able to test anything to do with DKs) but here's the first installment.

CKTucker asked:

For a prot pali How will I get intellect? I have seen the Nax raid gear on MMO-Champion. Have not noticed anything in the talent trees either, although I am known to miss the obviouse according to my wife.

As I alluded to in the comments, this isn't really caring about intellect; this is caring about whether or not a prot pally's mana is going to be a concern when there is no int on the armor. And from what I've seen and played with, the answer is a resounding no.

For starters, there is the awesome Divine Plea:

Divine Plea
Instant 1 min cooldown
You gain 25% of your total mana over 10 sec, but the amount healed by your spells is reduced by 50%.

This takes care of so much of the problem in tanking 5-mans, it's ridiculous. A one-minute cooldown allows it to work seamlessly, and the gain in mana allows for early use after AS/Holy/Conc and then a minute later, if you need.

The changes to how seals/judgments work also helps this quite a bit. In 5-mans, judgment of wisdom ensures that you're doing maximum damage with a tanking seal while still getting back mana from mobs you're tanking. Gone are the days where you have to juggle judgments and seals back and forth.

Another great boon is how cheap hammer of the righteous is. 6% of base mana for a spell that holds aggro well on 3 mobs AND can apply seal of vengeance is really, really efficient. For more than 3 mobs consecrate is still the spell of choice - and it's still very expensive - but this helps a lot on 3 and 4 pulls to keep aggro cheaply.

Yet more awesomeness: the new Blessing of Sanctuary. While 2% of base mana doesn't sound like a lot, this is triggering all the time for a paladin since so many of their attacks are blocked. Basically every single holy shield charge is 2% of your base mana.

Finally, there is the premier single target threat ability: Shield of Righteousness. This only costs 6% of your base mana and does a huge amount of threat at the block values currently seen. This combined with the reduction from Guarded by the Light make this easily spammable.

Anyway, on to actual testing. I found that with my lvl 80 paladin that I could tank multiple mobs easily simply by putting out one consecrate, having hammer of the righteous + seal of wisdom + judgment of wisdom, and doing divine plea. I could do this on 5-6 mobs without going below half mana. If I cut to not using seal of wisdom and just judging I found I would run out of mana around 2 minutes in. This was using some kind of threat move every time I could, usually either shield of righteousness and hammer, with the occasional consecrate and avenger's shield thrown in, along with judging. This was also not using any heals on me that would restore mana at all.

It was a real trip. :)

Anyway, more questions please!