Nefarian and the Hybrid Paladin

As an example of what I mean by hybrid style of the paladin, consider what I did on our first Nefarian kill last week. Remember that this was really our first night of Nef attempts, and while the content may be old to many of you, it was cutting edge to us. Certainly not farm content.

In phase 1, I was assigned to the blue drakonid door, so I stood back with the non-melee people and spot healed. I had Righteous Fury up. When a drakonid got loose and ran to the cloth, I blasted it with Judgement of Righteousness and dragged it back to the warriors and AoE spot.

When Nefarian landed, the priests ran to cover the main tank, and I started healing full-time as the raid cleaned up the remaining drakonids.

After the drakonids were all killed, I started meleeing Nefarian, keeping up Judgement of Wisdom, and using Seal of Wisdom to get back mana from phase 1. I was spot healing occasionally, cleansing during the mage call. When a priest/druid call came, I dropped back and started pouring heals into the main tank. After that call ended, back to meleeing.

At phase 3, when the undead zerg came, I fired off a Holy Wrath and healed the raid until the zerg was destroyed. Then I went back to hitting Nefarian until he was dead.

("This cannot be! I am the Master here! You mortals are nothing to my kind! DO YOU HEAR? NOTHING!")

Nefarian is the prime example of how I feel a paladin is best played. I off-tanked a bit, healed a lot, and melee-ed a lot, seamlessly switching between the roles as needed. Was it the single most efficient use of the paladin possible? Maybe, maybe not. Was it effective? Yes. Was it fun? Heck, yeah!

In the new specialized world is this going to be how a paladin plays? Or are the Holy Paladins going to heal with the priests, the Retribution Paladins do damage with the warriors and rogues, and Protection Paladins tanking the drakonids or even Nef himself?

Of course, weighted against my experience is that fact that many other paladins in other guilds went through Nefarian casting a single spell, Flash of Light. If this change, this specialization, enables the vast majority of paladins to do more than spam a single spell, it will be well worth it.