Holy Shield in 4.2

I'm a patient man, I think. I don't panic when patch notes drop, I don't freak out about nerfs, I don't chew my nails thinking about how Ghostcrawler is going to nerf my class to the ground. Generally, I am of the opinion that the developers will keep the various classes competitive, roughly equivalent and productive to be able to accomplish what we want in game.

That said. Man, am I getting tired of being jerked around just because I play a Paladin.

UPDATE: Changed my mind. Love the change. Sorry.

3.0 overhauled the class completely and utterly. 3.1 made us unbeatable gods and one of the top 2 if not the best tanking class just due to the automatic Ardent Defender and that lasted through Icecrown. 4.0 changed everything again with what Holy Power did, how it worked, and a nerf to AD - all that brought us back to ground among the warriors and Death Knights. 4.1 nerfed Word of Glory by adding a cool-down to it, but it was okay. We managed. Radiance took its place in crunch moments even if Mana got out of hand. As we got gear and started to kiss block cap...

Holy Shield changes completely. Again. Now it brings up our block amount up to 50% from 40% but instead of a continuous buff it's a 10 second buff with a 30 second cool-down. And it's now an ability we have to hit ourselves.

I just don't even know anymore. No thoughts about our Mastery, which is making us spam it on our gear and gem it and enchant it every which way to reach that block-cap, but hey, this does nothing to mitigate that. So my plan continues - stay block-capped through T12 and use Holy Shield every time I can and just treat it as having 2 PPMs with a 20second total up-time.

Not to mention the fact that an additional 20% block  means we will be blocking every hit that comes through for 50% - which is essentially implying that we should be block-capped because hey, that way, if we wanted to, we could just save Holy Shield for tight moments so healers can catch up on damage by cutting an additional 20% of incoming damage. But the combat table being what it is, that 50% reduction in damage is only guaranteed if we're block-capped in the first place! Make up your mind guys - do you want  block-capping to be essential to playing my class  correctly or not? Stop it with the mixed messages!

Like I said, I usually don't QQ about my class, but this level of adjustment to core mechanics is just amazing and now I have to figure out how to play the class through again. Every patch it's something. And wasn't extra-blocking supposed to be a Warrior mastery thing?

Juts, amazing.