Hey guys, if you are going to try and dispute something. Actually have a dialog that is going to be constructive and you use logic. Please stop using emotion because you “think” they shoudn’t be allowed be unbiased and look at things holistically.
Lets look at prot pally kit here, what do they have vs other specs in the game.
Currently they have high healing, Which I believe basically no non-healer spec should have other than maybe a select few, or if they do very minimal. Keep in mind, this healing isn’t really much more than ret pally can do within the arena if they want to play defensive.
They typically do roughly 70-80% of dps’s damage in an arena
They have CC which is HoJ, and a 3 second silence every 45 seconds, then in certain comps they can take repentance. The only difference from any other pally spec is that prot pally has access to Silence.
Prot pally has 3 self defensives in ardent defender 2 mincd, bubble 5min cd and guardian which is 5 min cd, guardian, by the way, can be changed to guardian of the ancient queen 3-minute cd which can be cc’d to prevent the effect which people dont understand how to play against, because of this it is not something that is really taken very often unless the prot pally is never the target. Then we have Bop which spell ward can be replaced as a 3 minute CD instead of a 5 minute bop. Then last but not least they have sac. So going over this, prot pally has the choice of max 4 defensives for themselves and then max of 3 externals. Yes this can be a loot of defensives but when you are facing all phyisical damage teams or most teams that are going the prot pally it ends up being very easy to actually kill the prot pally. Also tanks in general take 40% extra damage in arenas in addition to this. Now the only other thing that has not been mentioned is their ability to use freedom and then the ability to block spells using holy shield talent. They take less damage within their consencrate is an additional thing to take note of. In spite of these things, you can kill still a prot pally in a stun very easily because much of their damage reduction is from blocking and then the increased damage that they do take. They are much like a DH in that you are likely not going to kill a DH if you are just doing damage to them but they are incredibly squishy when you properly stun and cc them on your goes.
Now lets take a look at other specs.
Lock, all of BFA they have been incredibly tanky in arenas, they have literally defined the meta for all of BFA after S1. You talk about prot pally being so utterly OP and cancer to play against when playing against a lock, they were the most tanky spec in the game for all of BFA, even more tanky than a Prot pally. They literally dont have to do anything for their healing which is comprised of soul leech which is passively gained from fel armor which is always taken and a small amount from damage conversion and then the destro lock mastery. Playing against destro lock also made the game go into dampening because they were imesurably tanky with their effective healing and then never having any weaknesses until they go into dampening. They were arguably way more destructive than prot pallies ever were. The only real effective way to play against a lock team was to wait for dampening to kick in because if you didn’t you were just asking to die in the open and hopelessly attempt to actually try and provide pressure and kill before dampening even occurs. Destro locks have Way more CC which can be used defensively, coil that also heals, they have the ability to also healthstone, they literally have 4 different schools of cc, roots, incapacitate, disorient, stuns all baked into their kit. They also have the ability to spam their fears which is stupidly strong, they also have a ranged lockout interrupt that locks you out for 5 seconds. They have their 1 primary defensive, they also have extra heals which can be used defensively.They also have curses which are huge in perma slowing/increasing cast times/decrease damage intake. These are all something you are not actually taking into account. They also have the ability now that they have demonic portal and gateway so they now have actually a significant amount of mobility. Lock is a spec that is time and time again been utterly just busted in a lot of situations and hasn’t been properly tuned. You are going to say, oh it is a dps spec it is fine because it is not meant to tank raids. That isn’t a valid answer and argument because that information shouldn’t matter because it performs completely different in arenas than it does in actual pve environments.
Now lets look at ret pally it’s counterpart
Lets look at ret defensives, they have 2 baseline only self defensives, 1 talentable defensive, and 2 externals. This is extremely comparable to prot pally, taking this into account they have 3-4 defensives for themselves, they have the 2 externals. This is not taking into account the ability to use blessing of sanctuary which can be considered a defensive and general utility. with that argument you have 3-4 defensives and then 3 externals. They have effectively the same healing that prot pally has right now with their word of glories, yes it has to be used in place of their damage abilities but so does prot for they have to not use their shield of the righteous. Ret also has the ability to do insanely high damage granted is harder to get off but does not really need to have Cross cc to be able to actually for cooldowns. Prot pally on the other hand requires you to have good CC chains without gaps to actually be able to force defensive cooldowns. If you do not get the proper cross cc and long duration CC chains, you will never get kills early as a prot pally composition. Ret has the same ability to CC as Prot pally does minus the Silence on a 45 second CD. Ret is very squishy also but that is actually very comporable to Prot pally.
These are jusst two examples of other specs. In reality, prot pally isn’t much different than these specs. It however has a different focused playstyle. You cannot just mongo against it and win, you need to actually be smart to play against it. That is why when you face against a good prot pally, it feels very difficult like it feels like when you were to play against myself. However, if you properly time your goes with Cross CC, CCing the healer, CCing the Prot Pally, and then also CCing your kill target. That will generate insane pressure and you will easily get kills. This has been proven time and time again at high levels of play. Also, if you are playing any spec though, you have ways to actually prolonging the fight and then also preventing the kill to happen while your healer is cc’d. Ever spec has the ability to do it and make every game go into dampening if they want it to. That is why every AWC starts at dampening because at AWC, when you are playing correctly, every comp has the ability to prolong the game into dampening. This is not a specific thing to tanks. Think of Shadow Priests, what happens when your healer gets cc’d, you MD the CC, then you start healing/Mind Controlling them off to peel. Otherwise you have the ability to stun/fear the dps to peel which is normally not done. You also then have the ability to pop vamp embrace. You have so many ways to negate pressure which prot pally, only has their defensives and then heals to do so. They have their externals that they can use, they have healing, then they have their CC which is only HoJ. Ret even has more ways of working through this than prot pallies do. Ret has 45s sanc which will help to negate a go, they also have sac, they also have bop and then they have the ability to HoJ dps and better availablility to kite and peel than a prot pally does. Lock has the ability to havoc coil goes, they have the ability to spam fear, stun, root, they have their self defensive, they also have health stones. They have so much to prevent damage and negate goes. Mages, they have poly, they have nova, if they are fire, they then have DB. Then they have temp, they have shields, they have timeshift or whatever it is called. to negate those.
When you look at the game holistically and logically, prot pallies really dont have much more going for them than other specs do and aren’t in much of a better spot than other specs other than they currentl have high healing which is very fast. This is not something that should be there and expand on their defensive and or utility sphere of the game instead.