So so, I just thought I'd report that I am enjoying the Prot respec so far. With a couple of cheap AH purchases plus a relatively expensive
Crystalblade of the Draenei I rejigged my gear enough to give me another ~2k hp, so that coupled with the higher armour level leaves me feeling far less fragile. My DPS has taken a hit, but not as big a hit as I expected it to. I have a feeling I am still straddling between Fury and Prot gear at the moment, and to be honest I am a-ok with that because I still need decent DPS while soloing.
I am still learning the flow of battle using the new skillset, but the overall feel is good. I'll generally throw something at one mob, then charge past a second mob toward a third if possible. Once they're all in range I'll Thunder Clap, Cleave, then by that point Revenge will maybe pop, so I'll hit that and play it by ear. Devastate a few times if the target isn't too squishy, Heroic Strike to dump Rage, Shield Bash to stun casters, Shield Slam if Sword and Board procs (or if I have Rage to burn) and Concussion Blow when I feel like smacking the crap out of people. If I have enough Rage at the start of the fight I'll usually also Shockwave. It feels like I have a bigger bag of tricks than when I was playing Fury, and I haven't even started getting to the point where I need to hit Last Stand yet.
I grouped with a Mage last night. He seemed kind of quiet and unsure of things, I got the impression that he was a young dude. I learned a little more from grouping with him, though. I was very quick to map Taunt to an easily-accessible hotkey, because he seemed to like mana burning. He would go OOM a lot, which shows me he was maybe trying a bit too hard. I have a feeling this was due to a lack of communication, because as I said, he was pretty quiet and I didn't really talk to him all that much either because we were just questing. In hindsight I probably should have told him that 3 mobs wasn't a big deal and that he didn't need to do quite so much as he thought. He could probably have stood back and cast Blizzard or some kind of AE fire spell and we'd have done fine. A couple of times he did some kind of knockback AE that would piss me off, as I would invariably be about to Thunder Clap at that same moment. Point is though, I think I am going to try to group a bit more even while questing, because that short time with a squishy party member to keep mobs off of taught me a bit more about managing aggro and good ways to keep mobs focused on myself rather than my team-mate. Will need to feel pretty confident with that sort of thing before I venture into instances.
