One thing I never wanted to get into too much detail talking about during the beta was how Protection played levelling 70-80. I was convinced all along that there was no way that what I was experiencing was balanced with what the live release would offer. While the mechanics aren't entirely the same as when I stopped testing, I have to say that Protection Paladins still have it made for Wrath levelling.
The biggest factor of course is Blessing of Sanctuary in its new form. At level 70 I was able to grab groups of pretty much any size of level 71 melee mobs (which are in abundance early on) and run the entire fight with full HP and mana. Against small groups, I'd Seal/Judge Wisdom and with Sanc/Holy Shield up never run out of mana. 4-6 mobs weren't enough to cause a noticble decrease in my HP bar while fighting. Against larger groups of 12-16 mobs, I'd Seal/Judge Light, since the increased number of mobs meant a drastic increase in avoided hits, which means a drastic increase in mana return from Sanc.
Add to this the extra AoE toy we get immediatly, and the fact that maybe 20% of the mobs are vulnerable to Exorcism/Holy Wrath and levelling to 72 is cruise control. I'm looking at less than an hour for 73 tomorow -- and having the whole day available (rather than the 12 hours or so that I had today, of which I lived my life outside of WoW in a large portion of) I'm projecting possibly ending the day at 76.. since I know it's not all a straight-shot for AoE questing the next couple of levels.
Of course.. at level 75 our tank skill-set is mostly complete with our last major rotation spell coming in then. It could be worth it to take the class for a spin in the "balanced" live version instances.
Now, the easy levelling isn't totally unique to Protection Paladins. There are plenty of specs spanning many of the classes that just rip apart the level 70-73 area. I've heared several people talking about how it feels like the game is easier in Northrend or how they feel like they're cheating since nothing can touch them. By the time they're leaving the two starting zones it's a different song for those classes. The Wrath starting zones were legitimatly built for level 68s (where Hellfire was a good name for that zone if you were sub-60 imo) and it shows. We experience this steep curve of difficulty out of the starting zones as well, but Protection still feels like cruise control on the other side of the zone.
I'm interested in seeing how progress goes tomorow. Forgive me for focussing on progress over content -- I've done it already, I know what's there. It doesn't wow me seeing a neat an innovative quest that I've done twice before.