I can understand that blizzard wants to make rage consumption a decision that players need to make. Protection Warriors have always had issues with feast-or-famine resources that result in unforeseen gameplay effects.
Unfortunately all these changes result in castrating game-play in the name of balance. The rotation can already stall if played sub-optimally with Revenge’s rage cost and spending rage on Ignore Pain unnecessarily. These changes will only hurt Protection’s ability to “jump-start” stalled rotations by utilizing revenge when both shield slam and thunder clap are down. That’s not a “decision on when and how to spend it to make it more meaningful”. That’s literally how it is designed to be spent in order to keep the rotation flowing.
Blizzard has attempted this balancing act multiple times in the past with Protection Warriors and it never works. All it manages to do is make Protection Warriors the worst tank spec in terms of mitigation, damage, and most importantly of all: Fun.
Blizzard, I implore you, do not leave this much cut rage generation without also addressing other rage consumption issues as well.
Ignore Pain was built from the ground up to be exactly this. Protection has little else to spend rage on, outside of Revenge to keep the rotation smooth if Thunder Clap doesn’t proc Strategist. Revenge filled the gap of Heroic Strike as Protection’s “Damage-oriented” rage dump and Ignore Pain our “Damage-Reduction” rage dump. Shield Block was also increased in cost to make it a decision on when to press or not.
None of the rage changes will result in a positive effect for the spec and the two compensatory changes to shield wall and ignore pain are not enough to help ease the burden.
I sincerely hope there’s either more changes on the way, or these get reverted so more time can be spent cooking, cause these are only half baked in their present state.